Preparation and Evaluation of the Properties of FDM Printed Materials Made from Waste-Origin Polymers

The subject of the work encompasses the utilization of waste materials derived from the fused deposition modeling printing (FDM) process. Materials subjected to preliminary processing and modification were transformed into pellets and, subsequently, reused filament production and injection manufactured research samples. Neat rFDM material was modified with carbon fibers (CF), talc, and glycidyl-functionalized polyolefin elastomer (POE-g-GMA). The manufactured samples were subjected to detailed analysis, including mechanical and thermomechanical testing and thermal and rheological analysis. The results indicate that the mechanical performance of the FDM-printed samples was mostly more favorable than the injection molding procedure, largely due to the orientation of the printed structure. The thermomechanical properties of both types of materials did not differ from each other, while the annealing procedure allowed the increase of thermal resistance by approximately 20 °C. Talc/CF and the impact modifier made it possible to produce filament from waste and obtain satisfactory results in performance tests, especially for modified samples, where a large part of the materials achieved strengths above 30 MPa and a modulus of over 3 GPa, which is the performance of many commercial types of filaments.