Sustainability and Circular Economy Through Application and Processing of Recycled Materials into Additive Manufacturing

Nowadays sustainable manufacturing has become a trend, which is spread among whole industries. Additive manufacturing is rapidly growing technology that is offering possibilities for implementation of new composite materials, which can be produced from recycled materials. Circular economy is not only a popular trend but more period, in which today’s world must move on. In order to ensure the transformation from linear model of economy to circular model, it is necessary to ensure specific technologies that enable the possibility of recycling of various materials. Implementation of recycled materials into Additive manufacturing is a great opportunity due to the fact that 3D printing is an emerging technology, which is more sustainable than traditional manufacturing processes, for instance turning and milling. It is possible to admit that additive manufacturing is the ideal technology for zero-waste production. This paper reviews the possibility to implement the recycled materials into additive manufacturing process and points out the importance of recycling in general. In the introduction, the focus is directed on basic ways of waste recovery, established waste and recycling laws. Further, this paper elaborates specific types of recycled materials that are already being used for 3D printing. This paper also offers an alternative way of recycling old materials and failed printed samples and thus reduce the generated waste. The conclusion of this paper discusses the quality of virgin and recycled materials and the conclusion proposes the future direction of work to be focused more on examining the properties of recycled materials in a more detailed way.