Sustainable product design by large format additive manufacturing of cork composites

ABSTRACT

In this study, a series of Acrylate-Styrene-Acrylonitrile (ASA) composites loaded with high amounts of cork agro-waste (10–30 wt.%) are developed to address the increasing demand from industry and society for more sustainable materials, with the aim of reducing the carbon footprint associated with fossil fuel-derived plastics. These materials are suitable for Material Extrusion (ME) technologies, including Large Format Additive Manufacturing (LFAM). We demonstrate that the printing conditions can be optimised to manufacture cork composites with good mechanical properties, even for large particle sizes, around 1 mm. Sustainability analysis of these composites revealed that the carbon footprint can be reduced by up to 25% for composites with 30 wt.% cork, primarily due to the reduction in ASA usage. These composites were used to print a luminaire utilising a biomimetic approach and parametric design, showcasing how new materials and innovative product design can be integrated to produce functional and sustainable prototypes.

KEYWORDS:

• Large format additive manufacturing
• material extrusion
• cork
• composites
• sustainable materials
• product design

Acknowledgements

The first part of this work was funded by the ADICORK project, through a collaboration agreement between Junta de Andalucía (Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Fisheries and Sustainable Development) and the University of Cádiz (research group INNANOMAT, ref. TEP-946). This agreement has been funded by UE. The second part of this work was funded by FUTURECORK project (ref. BF022). FUTURECORK is supported by the Biodiversity Foundation of the Ministerio para la Transición Ecológica y el Reto Demográfico (MITECO) within the framework of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan (PRTR), funded by the European Union – NextGenerationEU. PBP acknowledges the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities for the FPU predoctoral contract (FPU21/01402). SEM measurements were carried out at the DME-SC-ICyT-ELECMI-UCA.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and the supporting information.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Junta de Andalucía.