These features have led to significant success in the areas of rapid prototyping and tool development. As a result, 3D printing technology has opened new possibilities for industries by enabling faster product design, customization, cost reduction, tangible product testing, and more.
For instance, its advances are increasingly becoming relevant in medical and dental industries where customization is essential. We have looked at the advantages of 3D printing here. However, 3D printing technology has a dark side and is not always the right choice for product development for your development project. Moreover, their economic, political, societal, and environmental impacts have not been extensively studied.
Here are ten things about the risks and potentially negative impacts of 3D printing technology. According to research by Loughborough University, 3D printers consume approximately 50 to times more energy than injection molding, when melting plastic with heat or lasers.
In , studies at The Environmentally Benign Manufacturing, a research group dedicated to investigating the environmental impacts related to product manufacturing, showed that direct laser metal deposition uses times as much electrical energy as traditional manufacturing. For mass production, 3D printers consume a lot of energy and are therefore better suited for small batch production runs. Industrial grade 3D printers are still expensive costing hundreds of thousands of dollar, which makes the initial expenses of using the technology very high.
For a single machine, capital investment starts in the tens of thousands of dollars, and can increase to as high as hundreds of thousands of dollars or more. Also, the materials used in commercial grade 3D printers are costly compared to product materials used in traditional manufacturing.
While 3D printing is a significant manufacturing breakthrough, materials that can be used are still limited, and some are still under development. For example, the 3D printing material of choice is plastic. Plastic is preferred as it can quickly and easily be deposited down in melted layers to form the final product. However, plastic may vary in strength capacity and may not be the best for some components. Some companies offer metal as a material, but final product parts are often not fully dense.
Other specialized materials including glass and gold are being used but are yet to be commercialized. Because of the excitement and potential around 3D printing technology, 3D printers have come across as easy to use and also sound more useful than they really are. The truth is 3D printers use high-voltage power supplies, specialized equipment, and parts which makes them difficult to use and manage. Their research study showed that 3D desktop computers could emit large numbers of ultrafine particles and some hazardous volatile organic compounds during printing.
The printers emitted 20 billion ultrafine particles per minute using PLA filament, and the ABS emitted up to billion particles per minute. Emitted radiations are similar to burning a cigarette, and may settle in the bloodstream or lungs posing health risks including cancer and other ailments. They estimated that in a commercial building setting such as a school or an office, better ventilation would limit the amount of exposure to the emissions.
However, in a typical residential setting with less effective ventilation, the exposure could be much higher, they reported. In the meantime, some measures can be taken by operators of 3D printers to lessen their impact on air quality:. Funding for the research came from Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. Source: Georgia Tech. Search for:. Science Health Culture Environment. To make sure you aren't thrown off guard by the conversations to come, we've compiled a list of 10 things you need to know about the dangers and potentially negative impacts of 3D printers.
When melting plastic with heat or lasers, 3D printers consume about 50 to times more electrical energy than injection molding to make an item of the same weight, according to research by Loughborough University. In , research at MIT's Environmentally Benign Manufacturing program showed that laser direct metal deposition where metal powder is fused together used hundreds of times the electricity as traditional casting or machining.
Because of this, 3D printers are better for small batch runs. Industrial-sized 3D printers may not be the answer to lessening our use of coal power any time soon. The emissions from desktop 3D printers are similar to burning a cigarette or cooking on a gas or electric stove. The study was the first to measure these airborne particle emissions from desktop 3D printers. While heating the plastic and printing small figures, the machines using PLA filament emitted 20 billion ultrafine particles per minute, and the ABS emitted up to billion particles per minute.
These particles can settle in the lungs or the bloodstream and pose health risk, especially for those with asthma. This potential digital piracy situation is comparable to the way the internet challenged the movie and music industries for copyrights, trademarks, and illegal downloads. The first successful 3D printed gun is old news, but its ramifications are very important.
John H. WE utilize 24 fully automated 3D printers in our production department. The source for this article is obviously somewhat dated. As far as the referenced patent for fully enclosed printers, there are over 20 patents for various enclosed systems and EVERY manufacturer that I know of utilizes all the safety and health technologies. So there are many other consideration and factors that go into 3D productions outside of just the fumes. Just sayin Bonnie E. Hopefully the next generation of 3D printers can be more energy-efficient and have less toxic fumes.
Are any companies working on those improvements? Laura L. It's not the machine putting out toxic fumes, it's the ABS plastic film being heated to be formed into the 3D shapes that is releasing the toxic fumes, anytime plastic is heated it releases dangerous things, which is why Mayo Clinics and Johns Hopkins University say to never microwave or heat food in a plastic container because the toxins are released and absorbed into the food.
They did mention in the article PLA plastic is derived from cornstarch and sugar cane and has less toxins, so I think we need education so that people choose the PLA instead when buying the printing materials, or we could petition to ban ABS. Roberta R. The Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins don't say never to microwave or heat food in a plastic container. There are a couple of biased studies that were published on the websites of both institutions exploring theories, but they are of limited scope.
Additionally, if you microwave with a container too many times, or for too long a duration to over-boil a substance, it could eventually degenerate the plastic. I've burned sauce in a microwave; it heated up SO hot that it melted the plastic. So of course I threw that container away. Use common sense, use only plastics that are designated as safe for microwave use, and avoid tin-foil-hat conspiracy theories.
I've heard they cause cancer :. The exact makeup of plastics changes depending on what type it is, supposedly certain types are deemed "safe to microwave" by the FDA, but the FDA is corrupt and have approved many things that aren't really safe for everyone and their tests to ensure "microwave safety" of a product are not based on all the ways a person might use them.
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