3D Printing of Plant-Derived Compounds and a Proposed Nozzle Design for the More Effective 3D FDM Printing

Additive manufacturing technology has been developed in the manufacturing industry; however, limited choice of materials and low printing speeds in large-scale production make 3D printing challenging in the industry. Wood and cellulose-based materials have recently drawn a lot of attention for use as 3D printing materials due to their unique properties such as environmental friendliness, cost-effectiveness and abundancy. However, because these compounds are derived from various natural sources, their different particle sizes can result in low 3D printing quality. The objective of this study is to resolve the mentioned deficiencies in the packaging industry by designing a novel 3D printer nozzle based on the material extrusion method (FDM technique), which provides higher printing speed and enhanced quality for wood and cellulose-based materials. The packaging industry can significantly benefit from 3D printing technology for cellulose-based materials by producing high-quality recyclable economical packaging on a large scale according to the clients’ demand. The proposed nozzle design enables selecting different geometrical cross-sections of the nozzle dies and any number of extrusion points along the nozzle die simultaneously during the 3D printing process. These capabilities lead to advanced performance and improved speed of 3D printing in large scale manufacturing. The proposed nozzle design provides a novel technique for 3D printing of plant-derived compounds with remarkable advantages such as providing selective variable extrusion and multiple nozzle dies. Compared to other existing 3D printing techniques, the proposed nozzle abilities make it a promising option with higher speed and better functionality for the packaging industry.