Active Interlayer Heating for Sustainable Selective Laser Sintering With Reclaimed Polyamide 12 Powders

Selective laser sintering (SLS) technology produces a substantial amount of un-sintered polyamide 12 powders after the manufacturing process. Failure to recycle and reuse these aged powders not only leads to economic losses but also is environmentally unfriendly. This is particularly problematic for powder particles close to the heat-affected zones that go through severe thermal degradations during the laser sintering processes. Limited procedures exist for systematically reusing such extremely aged powders. This work proposes a systematic method to maximize reusability of aged and extremely aged polyamide 12 powders. Building on a previously untapped interlayer heating, pre-processing, and a systematic mixing of powder materials, we show how reclaimed polyamide 12 powders can be consistently reprinted into functional samples, with mechanical properties even superior to current industrial norms. In particular, the proposed method can yield printed samples with 18.04 percent higher tensile strength and 55.29 percent larger elongation at break using as much as 30 percent of extremely aged powders compared to the benchmark sample.

Conference paper