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TECH SPACE
3D Printing: The Greener Choice
By Marcia Goodrich
Houghton MI (SPX) Oct 08, 2013


3D printing can save energy by using less raw material. These partially printed Swiss children's blocks show how a printer can partly fill the interior of an item with plastic while maintaining its strength. Image courtesy Samuel Bernier.

3D printing isn't just cheaper, it's also greener, says Michigan Technological University's Joshua Pearce. Even Pearce, an aficionado of the make-it-yourself-and-save technology, was surprised at his study's results. It showed that making stuff on a 3D printer uses less energy-and therefore releases less carbon dioxide-than producing it en masse in a factory and shipping it to a warehouse.

Most 3D printers for home use, like the RepRap used in this study, are about the size of microwave ovens. They work by melting filament, usually plastic, and depositing it layer by layer in a specific pattern. Free designs for thousands of products are available from outlets like Thingiverse.com.

Common sense would suggest that mass-producing plastic widgets would take less energy per unit than making them one at a time on a 3D printer. Or, as Pearce says, "It's more efficient to melt things in a cauldron than in a test tube." However, his group found it's actually greener to make stuff at home.

They conducted life cycle impact analyses on three products: an orange juicer, a children's building block and a waterspout. The cradle-to-gate analysis of energy use went from raw material extraction to one of two endpoints: entry into the US for an item manufactured overseas or printing it a home on a 3D printer.

Pearce's group found that making the items on a basic 3D printer took from 41 percent to 64 percent less energy than making them in a factory and shipping them to the US.

Some of the savings come from using less raw material. "Children's blocks are normally made of solid wood or plastic," said Pearce, an associate professor of materials science and engineering/electrical and computer engineering. 3D printed blocks can be made partially or even completely hollow, requiring much less plastic.

Pearce's team ran their analysis with two common types of plastic filament used in 3D printing, including polylactic acid (PLA). PLA is made from renewable resources, such as cornstarch, making it a greener alternative to petroleum-based plastics. The team also did a separate analysis on products made using solar-powered 3D printers, which drove down the environmental impact even further.

"The bottom line is, we can get substantial reductions in energy and CO2 emissions from making things at home," Pearce said. "And the home manufacturer would be motivated to do the right thing and use less energy, because it costs so much less to make things on a 3D printer than to buy them off the shelf or on the Internet."

A paper on their work "Environmental Life Cycle Analysis of Distributed 3D Printing and Conventional Manufacturing of Polymer Products," is in press in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering. The coauthors are Megan Kreiger, a master's graduate in materials science and engineering, and Pearce.

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TECH SPACE
Making household items on 3D printer said greener than factory versions
Houghton, Mich. (UPI) Oct 3, 2013
Making a plastic household item on a home 3D printer is greener than making them en masse in a factory and shipping them to a warehouse, a U.S. study found. While common sense might suggest mass-producing plastic widgets would take less energy per unit than making them one at a time on a 3D printer, Michigan Technological University researcher Joshua Pearce reports that's not the case. ... read more


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