Reuse of Green Parts for Metal Material Extrusion: A Recycling Approach for Improved Sustainability

In the recent years, a novel variant of Material Extrusion technique has been developed. This proved additive technology has been combined with an innovative filament loaded with metallic powder dispersed into a polymeric matrix. The parts printed with this metal/polymer composite filament by means of the Material Extrusion process are called “green parts”. After debinding and sintering treatments, the green parts became completely made by metal. As a novel technology, Metal Material Extrusion is still not a fully optimized and, therefore, efficient process and this leads to the generation of a great number of scraps due to the wasted products and to still existing process inefficiencies, which also increase the total costs of fabrication and undermine its economic competitiveness.