Glass bottles tossed in the trash are finding new life thanks to a collaboration between the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Vitriform3D, an advanced manufacturing company. Together, they found a way to turn old glass into new products using 3D printing.
“There’s so much glass going into landfills in the U.S.,” said Alex Stiles, Vitriform3D’s co-founder. “Glass is infinitely recyclable, but only one-third of glass waste is being recycled.”
Vitriform3D’s glass recycling process begins with crushing bottles down into a sandy powder. A robotic arm smoothly spreads the tiny glass fragments into a square pile, and nozzles along the arm spray an adhesive that glues the particles together, while other nozzles distribute ink to add fresh color. As the arm swings back and forth, adding more glass particles and adhesive each time, layers build up until the powdered glass is transformed into a durable coaster for a table or a beautiful, stain-resistant tile for a kitchen wall. The new object is then dusted off and, like a piece of pottery, heated in an oven to set the final shape.