Submitted 2 days ago by cm0002@lemmy.world to 3dprinting@lemmy.world
https://news.mit.edu/2025/new-3d-printing-method-enables-complex-designs-creates-less-waste-0603
I’m dubious of the recycling claim. The partially cured resin is dissolved in some secret solvent. Usually when you dissolve something in a solvent, the intention isn’t to recover the dissolved resin. They didn’t really discuss the recovery process, leading me to think it’s theoretically possible, but nobody will practically do it.
Still, dissolveable supports with a single resin mix is pretty cool.
As always with plastic recycling. The whole concept of plastic recycling is only a “don’t think about it, just buy it”.
Interestingly, the supports could even dissolve in the main liquid ingredient of the original resin, like a cube of ice in water. This means that the material used to print structural supports could be continuously recycled: Once a printed structure’s supporting material dissolves, that mixture can be blended directly back into fresh resin and used to print the next set of parts — along with their dissolvable supports.
Unless I’m reading this too optimistically, it seems like recovering the resin just requires adding more of the original solvent, which sounds pretty good (as long as that solvent isn’t much nastier than a regular resin solvent).
TDCN@feddit.dk 2 days ago
While i find resin prints super cool, the toxicity of the resin and solvents will never not make me a feel uneasy about it. Working with resin is just messy and can be quite unhealthy.