Our granulation process runs pretty smoothly as our industrial granulator does most of the work. This year, the biggest areas for improvement are collection and sorting.
In order to make these improvements, our granulation team has set the goal of strengthening our relationships with Jacobs Design Institute and Citris Invention Labs, as well as any other 3D printing spaces on campus.
With campus up and running with in-person activities, the production of 3D printed waste is sure to increase again, and we want to be able to divert as much of it as we can away from landfills.
The next step in the granulation plan is to create a better system for sorting the 3D prints. As of now, the prints are all hand-sorted by color by the granulation team. However, it is not always possible to tell the difference between materials of the same colors. For example, break-away, a common support material that is not PLA is often indistinguishable from white PLA filament using only the human eye. Further, although our signage states that only PLA is accepted in our bins, students often don’t pay attention and will throw in ABS or other materials, which can really change the properties of the recycled filament.
In order to improve the sorting system, the granulation team will be researching methods for distinguishing between different materials that are commonly used for 3D printing.
In general, the granulation team is confident that their work this year will help to improve the granulation step of the process such that it can be performed without any problems, and will lead to easier extrusion in the future.
This blog post was written by Brooke Chang.