Democratize materials and technological knowledge.
Welcome to the Virtual library of RepMat!
RepMat Library, REPlicating MATerials Library, is an Open Source Materials Library designed to share circular sustainable practices linked to new materials and technologies, in particular 3D printing.
This library contains useful data and information regarding materials, products, and 3D printing processes connected to circular economy and sustainable development practices. It has been designed to encourage the use and spread the knowledge and use of materials for new applications and products connected to circular economy principles, stimulating new work on them.
A collaborative, distributed, and open source materials library
RepMat is meant as a collaborative distributed materials library, following the principles of open source and open design. It can be freely replicated within collaborative spaces, such as makerspaces, and the library itself can grow thanks to the contribution of different users and communities.
Since the take-make-dispose model is leading to significant waste production and environmental impact, circular economy models have been spreading to reduce waste and resource depletion, rethinking the existing resource cycles. Plastic waste created environmental and economic concerns, requiring new recycling methods and strategies to preserve resources. This practice plays a key role in extrusion-based additive manufacturing, converting waste into recycled feedstock. Large-format additive manufacturing represents a promising way to scale up recycling strategies with granulated polymer feedstock, especially considering popular materials, i.e., PLA. However, thermomechanical degradation affects the quality of this secondary raw material, and these effects on large-format systems are scarcely studied. This work investigates the thermal, rheological, and mechanical properties of PLA feedstock for large-format additive manufacturing after multiple recycling processes, i.e., up to six. The effect of material degradation from multiple recycling processes was assessed through Gel Permeation Chromatography, Differential Scanning Calorimetry, flow stress ramp tests, tensile tests, and colorimetry. Some 3D printed parts were fabricated to assess the overall quality of the process, including pieces from potential applications. Lower effects of thermomechanical degradation were found compared to desktop-size 3D printers, mainly by cutting the reprocessing steps to produce secondary raw materials, i.e., making new filaments. Recycled granulate PLA feedstocks represent a potential alternative to virgin pellets for new applications in real-world contexts.
@journalarticle{romani2024rPLA,title={Characterization of PLA feedstock after multiple recycling processes for large-format material extrusion additive manufacturing},author={Romani, Alessia and Perusin, Lorenzo and Ciurnelli, Mattia and Levi, Marinella},journal={Materials Today Sustainability},volume={25},pages={100636},numpages={16},year={2024},publisher={Elsevier},doi={10.1016/j.mtsust.2023.100636},url={https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2589234723003238?via%3Dihub},keywords={3D printing, Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF), Fused Granular Fabrication (FGF), Recycling, Polylactic acid (PLA), Distributed recycling for additive manufacturing (DRAM)},}
This Materials Library is part of the PhD research of Alessia Romani held at Politecnico di Milano (Italy), supervised by prof. Marinella Levi and prof. Valentina Rognoli.
The Materials Library System is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) 3.0.
