Investigation into the mechanical and thermal properties of poly(methyl methacrylate) recovered from light guidance panels with a focus on future remanufacturing and sustainable waste management

Abstract

Remanufacturing is recognized as a major circular economy option to recover and upgrade functions from post-use products. However, the inefficiencies associated with operations, mainly due to the uncertainty and variability of material flows and product conditions, undermine the growth of remanufacturing. With the objective of supporting the design and management of more proficient and robust remanufacturing processes, this paper proposes a generic and reconfigurable simulation model of remanufacturing systems. The developed model relies upon a modular framework that enables the user to handle multiple process settings and production control policies, among which token-based policies. Customizable to the characteristics of the process under analysis, this model can support logistics performance evaluation of different production control policies, thus enabling the selection of the optimal policy in specific business contexts. The proposed model is applied to a real remanufacturing environment in order to validate and demonstrate its applicability and benefits in the industrial settings.

Energy Consumption vs. Tensile Strength of Poly[methyl methacrylate] in Material Extrusion 3D Printing: The Impact of Six Control Settings

“…Additives, such as silica, carbon, and boron nitride have been employed [ 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 ]. The sustainability of PMMA has been studied, focusing on its performance when recycled in 3D printing [ 54 ] and elsewhere [ 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 ]. For the analysis and optimization of PMMA performance, modeling tools have been employed [ 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 ].…”

Modelling the chemical recycling of crosslinked poly (methyl methacrylate): Kinetics of depolymerisation

“…The recycling of PMMA waste has been assessed by different methods, including its direct reuse in the production of new polymers [13] and asphalt mixtures [14], and its mechanical [9,15,16] and chemical [9,11,[17][18][19] recycling. Whereas the direct reuse of PMMA waste usually requires clean and uncontaminated streams, its mechanical recycling may allow for the processing of waste streams containing other types of plastics, however it usually results in polymers with inferior properties [8,15].…”

“…The recycling of PMMA waste has been assessed by different methods, including its direct reuse in the production of new polymers [13] and asphalt mixtures [14], and its mechanical [9,15,16] and chemical [9,11,[17][18][19] recycling. Whereas the direct reuse of PMMA waste usually requires clean and uncontaminated streams, its mechanical recycling may allow for the processing of waste streams containing other types of plastics, however it usually results in polymers with inferior properties [8,15]. In contrast, the chemical recycling of PMMA by thermal pyrolysis has demonstrated great potential for the recovery of the methyl methacrylate (MMA) monomer [11,[17][18][19], which can be further polymerised to result in polymer resins presenting comparable properties to those obtained by using virgin and non-recycled monomer [17,18].…”

Influence of acrylonitrile butadiene rubber on recyclability of blends prepared from poly(vinyl chloride) and poly(methyl methacrylate)

“…Owing to light-weight and superior light transmittance, amorphous polymer like poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) is commonly employed in the light guidance panels in liquid crystal display (LCD). As the advanced LCD technology is being used in most of the new generation computers, a considerable quantity of waste PMMA is being generated in recent years (Kikuchi et al, 2014; Suresh et al, 2017a). Similarly, the data cables used in the computer for sharing the data is heterogeneous and complex in nature.…”