Recycle4Repair
Due to statutory plastic recycling rates, an increasing amount of high-quality plastic recyclates will become available in the future. This includes PET (polyethylene terephthalate) from packaging, bottles and old textiles. There is a need for sensible recycling options for these increasing quantities. One such option would be to use them as a raw material for (powder bed-based) additive manufacturing, as demonstrated by Recycle4Repair.
Project Partners
- Polymer Competence Center Leoben GmbH, Coordinator
- Haratech GmbH
- INO GmbH
- JOANNEUM RESEARCH Forschungsgesellschaft mbH
- Lehrstuhl für Kunststoffverarbeitung / Montanuniversität Leoben
- Nemeton Innovation GmbH
Motivation and Goals
The motivation behind Recyle4Repair is the development of recycled PET (rPET) as a material resource for the production of sustainable, durable, high-quality engineering components and especially spare parts with (through the use of recycled material) significantly reduced CO2 footprint. For this purpose, powder bed-based additive manufacturing (selective laser sintering, SLS) is used due to the better mechanical properties that can be achieved compared to injection molding and due to the possibility of economical small to medium series production. In order to not only limit the sustainability concept to the manufacturing process, but to extend it over the entire product life cycle, including operation and
end-of-life recycling, the lightweight construction potential of additive manufacturing, in particular the metamaterial concept, is also given priority in the project. Metamaterials potentially also replace hardly recyclable multi-material injection molding materials by structural deformability. Additionally, the development of a resource-saving coloring method for the SLS-printed rPET components based on food-safe dyes is included in the project. This allows to replace duromer coating, which reduces the recyclate quality. Together with the intrinsic “single material” approach of both, the SLS technique and the metamaterial concept, this ensures unhindered recyclability at the end of the component's life.
Main Goals
- “Selective laser sintering” (SLS) of PET powders
- New PET and rPET (from post-consumer recyclate) as raw materials
- Sustainable dyeing with natural dyes
- Novel repair approaches through the use of metamaterials
- Engineering plastic components with a significantly reduced CO2 footprint
Objectives and Approach
The overall aim of the industrial research project Recycle4Repair (with finally developed demonstrators) is to reduce CO2 emissions in the production of conventional plastic products (by around 20-30%). This is achieved by using recycled PET material (rPET) and by exploiting the lightweight construction potential available through 3D printing (material is only deposited where it is needed). The focus here is on technically demanding components from and for the customer environment of the industrial partners involved, i.e. primarily repair components (housing covers, connecting elements, etc.), but also series components with high lightweight construction potential and additional functional (mechanical) properties (sports equipment, (bicycle) saddles, orthoses / prostheses, etc.).
“Recycle4Repair reduces the carbon footprint of plastic components by using waste streams as raw material, the lightweight potential of 3D printing and sustainable post-processing.”
Funding Body
The project is funded by Federal Ministry for Innovation, Mobility and Infrastructure (BMIMI) as part of the call for proposals of the FTI initiative “Produktion und Material 2023, national”. The program is managed by the FFG (project number FO999913845).
