Processing System for Plastic Bottle to Obtain Polyethylene Terephthalate Filament in 3D Printers

Abstract

Plastic has become one of the most used materials in the world for many uses, especially PET plastic (polyethylene terephthalate) which is used to make plastic containers and bottles. In addition, in recent years there has been an increase in pollution due to its waste, which affects the terrestrial, marine, and climatic ecosystems. Since 2018, in Peru, thousands of tons of PET containers have been produced, of which only 21.9% was recycled. This generates great contamination of waste by plastic bottles that are produced annually. Therefore, it is important to carry out recycling processes to avoid contamination by PET bottles, which take more than 500 years to degrade. Therefore, new recycling processes are sought in areas of interest such as 3D printing technologies. For this reason, the objective of this paper is to implement a system that performs the recycling of PET bottles for use in 3D printing and thus contributes to reducing pollution. As a result, an electronic card was obtained for the automation of the foundry machine, cutting processes, casting, extrusion, and collection of filaments. In addition, a programming algorithm was developed to monitor and display the temperature based on a closed-loop system and thus obtain a higher performance and quality of PET filament.