Fused Deposition Modeling as a Secondary Recycling Process for the Preparation of Sustainable Structures

A rapid increase of polymeric waste (PW) has an adverse impact on the planet's biological life and freshwater resources as well as creates terrestrial and marine pollution. Recycling of PW becomes an essential part to manage the waste and protect the environment from their harmful impacts. The authors initially review the various recycling techniques to process the PW and then studied the effect of various reinforcements on the mechanical properties of the filaments prepared for 3D-printing applications. The literature review highlighted that advanced manufacturing techniques like 3D printing and fused deposition modeling (FDM) can utilize the thermoplastic filament prepared from waste materials by enhancing their properties and thus offers a potential solution to reduce the polymeric waste. This book chapter primarily focuses on exploring the feasibility to prepare sustainable structure from secondary recycled acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS)–based composite filaments reinforced with bakelite powder, wood dust, and Fe powder by multi-layer printing using the FDM technique. The various rheological/mechanical properties of the fabricated composite filaments were investigated and the results were analyzed through porosity and scanning electron microscopic (SEM) characterization. The researchers highlighted that a tensile specimen fabricated from recycled composite filaments by multi-layer printing possesses acceptable strength and does not offer any critical challenge during printing.