Sculpteo launches new part recycling program, RE-cycleo
Allowing for the recycling of Nylon PA12 and Nylon PA11 parts
Sculpteo, a global, online 3D printing service, has released its latest offering – RE-cycleo, a new recycling program for parts printed with Nylon PA12 and Nylon PA11. The recycled material will be used in the plastics industry and will give a second life to the old parts that can be recycled multiple times. With this, Sculpteo becomes one of the first 3D printing services to offer recycling services – not only for clients’ parts but also for production scrap.
Sculpteo is also expanding its line of sustainable materials like bio sourced Nylon PA11, in an attempt to make 3D printing even more sustainable.
“With RE-cycleo, we are inaugurating a new, more responsible way of producing, where we offer clients the possibility to upgrade their products. It has taken decades for mass industries to develop effective recycling programs with their gigantic volumes. At Sculpteo, we can offer it from the first part,” said Alexandre d’Orsetti, CEO of Sculpteo.
To recycle their parts, customers will send them to Sculpteo with destruction authorization. Once received, the parts will be sorted into either Nylon PA11 or Nylon PA12. The parts will then be placed in octa bins that can contain hundreds of kilos of parts, and then crushed into pieces. To keep the industrial secrecy and confidentiality of their clients, Sculpteo guarantees that the grinding only happens on-site, inside their factory. The crushed material is then sent to Arkema, which will recycle it as part of their Virtucycle program. The ground material is analyzed to ensure that there is no contamination.
At the compounding stage, the material is remelted, chilled, and cut into pellets that will be used in other industrial applications. These pellets form the final state of the new material. In the case of injection molding, the pellets will be melted and injected in a mold to create a new product like car components, tennis rackets, shoes, helmets, a suitcase, etc. This whole process reportedly uses 100% renewable energy.
