FDM 3D Printing of Environmental Friendly and High Strength Bio-based PC Filaments for Baby Toys

Due to the depletion of fossil oil and the increasing oil price, bio-plastic is currently topical. Bio-based plastics are synthesized from plant resources, unlike conventional petroleum-based counterparts. Therefore, the former minimizes global warming and reduces carbon dioxide emission. Fossil polycarbonate (PC)has good mechanical and optical properties, but its synthesis requires bisphenol-A and phosgene gas, which are toxic to humans. To address these problems, the fused deposition 3D printing process (hereafter, FDM) is studied using environmentally-friendly and high-strength bio-based PC.
A comparisonof the environmental impact and tensile strength of fossil PC versus bio-based PC is presented herein, demonstrating that bio-based PC is more environmentally-friendly with higher tensile strength than fossil PC. The advantages of bio-based PC are applied in the FDM process for the fabrication of environmentally-friendly baby toys.