Mechanical Recycling of Wood Plastic Composites Mould

With the development of Fused Granular Fabrication 3D-printing technology, wood plastic composite (WPC) has been researched and applied in many processes such as mould manufacturing. The 3Dprinted WPC waste has also many potentials to recycle and bring the end-of-life product back to the mould industry. To contribute on Circular Economy, the recycled WPC mould can be an alternative solution to non-recyclable thermoset mould. This thesis studied about the feasibility of recycling WPC moulds by focusing on the effect of multiple recycling steps on the physical and mechanical properties of WPC. To represent the 3D-printed mould, the waste created during the 3D-printing trials for producing mould was selected for further investigation. In the first recycling stage, the 3D-printed waste was grinded, and compression moulded to make composite plates. The same recycling steps were repeated four more times. The mechanical properties of grinded powder and composites of each recycling stage were tested and discussed. The result of melt flow index shows an increase, which means the easier draining through the nozzle of 3D-printer. Density illustrates the nearly same results of reference plate and plate of cycle 1; however, it rises significantly from recycling cycle 2, because of increasing tooling gelcoat content. Tensile properties of two first recycling process are stable due to improvement of fibre dispersion. By optical microscopy, the coating particles content show high effect on weaker adhesion between components of the composite. Therefore, tensile properties reduce considerably from recycling cycle 3