Waste to Value: Transforming HDPE bottles to 3D printing filament
Converting HDPE to 3D printing filament turned out to be very challenging. Social Seva quickly discovered why the 3D printing community considered this material to be unprintable.
Guruswamy Kumaraswamy is the Abdul Kalam Technology Innovation Fellow and a Professor in the department of Chemical Engineering at IIT-Bombay, Mumbai, where he leads a group investigating sustainable technology through soft materials. He received his B. Tech. from IIT-Bombay in 1994, followed by an MS (1996) and PhD (2000) from Caltech, USA. After a year at the Max Planck Institute in Germany, he returned to the National Chemical Laboratory in India. He moved to IIT-Bombay in October 2019. Prof Guruswamy’s work is primarily in the area of soft materials including, polymers, composites, nanocomposites, colloids, nanoparticles, surfactants, etc. His work has resulted in the development of technology that has successfully been transferred to industry. He is a Fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering and a Foreign Fellow of the American Physical Society.
Converting HDPE to 3D printing filament turned out to be very challenging. Social Seva quickly discovered why the 3D printing community considered this material to be unprintable.