Nefilatek Needs to Flip Montreal’s Waste into 3D Printing Filament – 3DPrint.com
“This industry will bring a lot of improvements to people, but 3D printed objects are made from various plastics and these materials have a terrible impact on the environment. In fact, only a small fraction of plastic waste is well recycled and reused as it should be in ten to fifteen cycles. The rest is burned or sent to landfill. Additionally, a large amount of plastic never ends up in the trash and ends up in nature, which is a critical pollution problem.
“NefilaTek is a new company making environmentally friendly 3D printing filaments from recycled plastic. The idea is to reduce the environmental impact of the 3D printing industry by making high quality filaments from plastic waste from Montreal. The processing of used plastic into useful items is the greatest challenge of our time to reduce the pollution and overproduction of plastic. “
Much of the world’s industrial polymer materials are already being recycled. There are commercial recycling companies trading in regrind ABS, PC and many other materials around the world. These polymers are offered for sale worldwide. In recent years regrind has been more expensive than new pellets made from new resin due to the high demand in some regions. We often hear that the plastics industry is responsible for all plastic diseases, but the global recycling market and use of regrind materials is really impressive. Many polymers can be recycled six or seven times, and if everything is okay, it’s millions of tons. This results in materials with an extended life of many decades through many different uses. As long as there is traceability (to know what additives are in the base material), even high value applications can be investigated. With packaging and single-use items, which usually only last a few days, I think the plastics industry is clearly part of the problem. We need innovative natural, bio-based, compostable or recycled materials to solve the problem of volatile use of polymers for silly applications like a clear pod for a cucumber. In other applications, we can see that market-driven solutions provide an industry that has an incentive to reuse these materials and extend their lifespan.
No bobbin filament is also a huge benefit.
By working with this established regrind industry, Nefilatek would like to offer our market many filament qualities. The really cool thing is that absolutely every single filament manufacturer can do the same.
The company told us, “All of our filaments are 100% 100% filament recycled Raw materials, we don’t have any new plastic in our filament. “
With many polymers this would be difficult, so we are skeptical.
Research and development engineer Angel Chauffray said something that makes us happy: “You have achieved an industrial tolerance for the filament diameter of 1.75mm +/- 0.05. It works at least as well as other filaments with this tolerance. “
Another thing that worried us was that they were also working on new R&D materials like “Dark Blue Polypropylene (recycled from hospitals). “If they manage to create a very exciting material, it would be” carbon fiber reinforced nylon, “which they are working on with a company that recycles carbon fiber. The company has also developed PCs, but has not yet launched them.
The company currently offers ABS and HIPS. HIPS has very interesting properties, but you have to be careful when extruding it. ABS and HIPS should both be used in a sealed printer with carbon and HEPA filters in my opinion. The company is investing in recycling facilities to test and develop more materials in-house. I really like Nefilatek’s approach and would like more people to work constructively with the regrind industry to make high performance filaments from recycled materials.
