Throughout this semester, our Granulation Team has been working hard on streamlining their processes. During our remote research period, they have come up with plans to efficiently collect and sort the 3D prints to be recycled before they are put in the granulator and to effectively remove the granules from the collection bin in the granulator.
This plan begins with our print collection site, where the team has planned to implement a multi-compartment recycling collection bin wherein the PLA recyclers can sort their prints by color before they are collected by our team.
Multi-component recycling bins would help to speed up the granulation process because it would mean that our team members do not have to spend their time sifting through the collected bags of recycling. Further, sorting their failed prints by color would not be too much of a hassle for the recyclers since most often, they will only be throwing away one or two printed items at a time, which won’t be hard to sort.
This plan could be enhanced by the use of a laser plastic identification machine, which we would run the collected recycling through, and the laser machine would sort the plastic pieces by color for us. This, of course, would be the easier option, but we would need to collect sufficient funding in order to purchase this machine.
The second part of the plan involves effectively removing the granules from the collection bin at the end of the granulation process. Currently, we are using a vacuum to collect the granules, however, after leaving the granulator, they are statically charged and often stick to the walls of the collection bin.
In order to avoid this issue of static energy, the granulation team plans to try two methods - one is to apply an anti-static spray to the prints and granulator collection bin before running the prints through the granulator and the other is to line the granulation collection bin with dryer sheets in order to absorb any static electricity that the granules may have when they enter the collection bin.
With all of these plans implemented, the granulation team will be able to streamline their processes as soon as they can return to in-person research.
This blog post was written by Brooke Chang.
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