Proceedings of Mechanical Engineering Research Day 2018, pp.

136-137, May 2018

Investigation on the suitability of plastic bottle material as 3d printer

filament
Noor Saffreena Hamdan1,3, Muhammad Syahmi Zainal Kifli1, Mohd Rizal Alkahari2,3, Arzadtul Ruziya Zolkaply2,
Muhammad Afdhal Nazhan2
1)
Faculty of Engineering Technology, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka,
Hang Tuah Jaya, 76100 Durian Tunggal, Melaka, Malaysia.
2)
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka,
Hang Tuah Jaya, 76100 Durian Tunggal, Melaka, Malaysia.
3)
Centre for Advanced Research on Energy, Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka,
Hang Tuah Jaya, 76100 Durian Tunggal, Melaka, Malaysia.
*
Corresponding e-mail: saffreena@utem.edu.my

Keywords: 3D printer; 3D filament; plastic recycling

ABSTRACT – This research aimed to investigate the 2. METHODOLOGY

suitability of recycled plastic bottle material as 3D printer In this study, the HDPE plastic bottle went through
filament, by the evaluation of the final 3D product from cutting process and extruding process before it can be
the filament. It focused on developing a 3D filament printed using open source 3D printer and tested as a 3D
using High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) recycled product.
bottle. The filament is then used at an open source 3D The HDPE bottle was collected and classified into
printer to print a 3D product. Comparison with several types. The same type is used, and the plastic
Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) filament’s product bottle was cut into small fragments called flakes. The
for tensile strength test, elongation and tensile modulus small fragments are then processed using Filastruder
is done. The result shows that ABS is 42% higher tensile machine which is a filament extruder.
strength and 75% higher tensile modulus value than In this research, to improve the result, the filament
HDPE but the elongation data shows that the HDPE puller is developed using NEMA 17 stepper motor and
material has 95% higher elongation rate compared to Arduino mega. The function of filament puller is to pull
ABS. This conclude that HDPE is more flexible than the filament that comes out from filament extruder with
ABS thus, is suitable to produce high flexibility product constant speed. This improvement is to ensure the
with the open source 3D printer. filament extruder will produce the same diameter of 1.75
mm from one end to another.
1. INTRODUCTION After the filament was successfully produced, the
Current recycling method is high cost because its filament is used on open source 3D printer to print dog-
involve many process and are not eco-friendly. However, bones shape before being tested with ASTM D-638
this plastic waste will be discernible for quite a long time tensile strength test. The result obtained is then compared
or years, and waste will stay in landfill destinations for a with existing filament which is ABS filament.
considerable length of time without debasing [1]. 3D
filament is suggested as one of the new method to recycle
plastic waste and to be used into 3D printer. [2-3]. 3D
printer now is developing rapidly and the advancement
on it is still on research to improve the quality of the
printed products. It is operated by using filaments as ink
to print the 3D product. Therefore, the filaments material
selection is important to deliver a decent product. Plastic
or polymers are suitable to be use as 3D printer filaments Figure 1 Dog-bones 3D product design.
because its own thermoplastic and thermosetting
properties that suitable as 3D printer filament. It is also 3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
durable and light weight. The process to produce the 3D 3.1 Extruder optimization
filament starts with cutting the plastic bottle waste into In this study, some improvement on the the
small fragments. Then, the fragments are feed into extruding process of the HDPE material has been done.
filament extruder to produce the best 3D filament that can An automatic filament puller was invented to constantly
feed to the open source 3D printer. The filament is then pull the filament with the certain speed and the data is
used at an open source 3D printer to print a 3D product taken puller motor speed, extruder temperature and
[4]. filament diameter as result. The figure below shows the
Therefore, this study intended to investigate the extruding process takes place when using filament puller,
suitability of the HDPE plastic bottle material to be used and the data for the extruder optimization is shown in
as 3D printer filaments and compared the 3D product Table 1.
with existing 3D printer materials.

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© Centre for Advanced Research on Energy
 Hamdan et al., 2018

plasticity and ductility compared to the ABS material.

The tensile strength data displayed that ABS has higher
tensile strength than HDPE. It shows that ABS tend to
have higher maximum amount of tensile stress before
breaking of failure compared to HDPE materials. Tensile
modulus also refers as young’s modulus of material. The
HDPE has low tensile modulus compared to the ABS
material. This shows that the HDPE is more flexible in
Figure 2 Filament extrusion with automatic puller. material than ABS material Flexible material always has
low tensile modulus value and it can change it shape
Table 1 Extruder optimization using automatic puller considerably.
Test Test Test Test Test
Parameter CONCLUSION
1 2 3 4 5
It is concluded that the suitable parameter for
Puller motor
4 4 4 4 4 extruding process is 215 °C without pulling system and
speed (RPM)
220 °C when using pulling system. The (RPM) of
Extruder
filament puller which is constant at 4 RPM and the
temperature 200 205 210 215 220
temperature setting for extruder machine is 220 °C. The
(°C)
product finishing is depending on the motor driller speed
Average
on extruder machine. In addition, the result of the tensile
filament 1.15 1.33 1.61 1.67 1.74
strength shows that ABS is 42% higher tensile strength
diameter (mm)
and 75% higher tensile modulus value than HDPE but the
elongation data shows that the HDPE material has 95%
From the data obtained, the most suitable
higher elongation rate compared to ABS. This conclude
temperature for filament extruder is 220 °C and the speed
that HDPE is more flexible than ABS thus, is suitable to
of NEMA 17 stepper motor is set to 4 RPM and this is the
produce high flexibility product with the open source 3D
lowest speed by declaring const int StepsPerRevolution
printer. At overall, the HDPE is more plasticity, ductility
= 3000; in arduino coding software.
and elasticity than ABS and HDPE is more suitable for
plastic product usage as it can stretch long enough and
3.2 Tensile strength test
difficult to break. The good example for using HDPE is
The data collection process is considered by using
use it as 3D printer filaments, piping industry, electrical
ASTM D-638 standard by using tensile strength test
industry, etc. In overall, the HDPE material is suitable to
equipment. The equipment is calibrated before the data is
use as 3D printer filament and this recycling process is
collection process and the data are taken on several
success.
testing specimens.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This project is supported by Ministry of Education
Malaysia (grant number:
RAGS/1/2015/TK0/FTK/03/B00123).

REFERENCES
[1] Tachwali, Y., Al-Assaf, Y., & Al-Ali, A. R. (2007).
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bottle recycling - An overview. Resources,
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