| As a part of its commitment to environmental sustainability and ecological responsibility, the JMS group conducts research on a variety of factors relating to the environmental impact of advanced materials engineering and additive manufacturing. The group studies the recyclability of powders and the AM components made from them to learn how powders can be reused and whether or not parts can be sustainably turned back into powders for reuse in the AM of new parts. Additional topics of interest in this area include: lifecycle assessments of AM components; the total impact of AM production systems (e.g., in terms of energy expenditure and water consumption); and the possibility of recycling waste (e.g., industrial waste, scrap, etc.) into powders which could be used to AM fresh parts, thereby significantly broadening the scope of discarded materials which could be efficaciously recycled. |
