Thermal and Mechanical Degradation of Recycled Polylactic Acid Filaments for Three-Dimensional Printing Applications.

The recycling of filaments used in three-dimensional (3D) printing systems not only mitigates the environmental issues associated with conventional 3D printing approaches but also simultaneously reduces manufacturing costs. This study investigates the effects of successive recycling of polylactic acid (PLA) filaments, which were used in the printing process, on the mechanical properties of recycled filaments and printed objects. The mechanical strengths of the printed PLA and the adhesion strengths between 3D-printed beads were evaluated via the tensile testing of the horizontally and vertically fabricated specimens.

Dipolarity, hydrogen-bond basicity and hydrogen-bond acidity of aqueous poly(ethylene glycol) solutions.

Poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) in water is known to alter the structure and/or state of water to give a different polarity from that of pure water. We determined using the solvatochromic comparison method the dipolarity/polarizability (pi*), hydrogen bond (HB) accepting basicity (beta) and HB donating acidity (alpha) of aqueous solutions of PEGs of variegated molecular weights at different concentrations in order to understand the influence of the polymer on these properties of water. It was observed that PEG decreases alpha for water while it does not change pi* and beta appreciably in the range of the molecular weight and compositions studied.