Cold Consolidation of Pharmaceutical Waste Glass Powders Through Alkali Activation and Binder Jet 3D Printing.

The recent COVID-19 emergency has led to an impressive increase in the production of pharmaceutical vials. This has led to a parallel increase in the amounts of waste glass; manufacturers typically recover material from faulty containers by crushing, giving origin to an unrecyclable fraction. Coarse fragments are effectively reused as feedstock for glass melting; on the contrary, fine powders (<100 microns), contaminated by metal and ceramic particles due to the same crushing operations, are landfilled.