Press release DGPS 2022

Plastic waste is not an end product: using machines from QiTech Industries produce recycled filament

By now it is clear to everyone that plastic waste is an enormous threat to our environment. Every year the plastic waste mountain grows more and more and more and yet new plastic continues to be produced. But what if the plastic waste could be easily and locally melted down into new, high-quality material and printed into any object using a 3D printer?And that's where QiTech Industries into the game. With our machine ecosystem called "JARVIS", local material cycles can be established, where the plastic waste is recycled exactly where it is generated - without long shipping distances with additional CO2 emissions. 3D printing is also a big trend because of the local aspect, and is becoming increasingly popular with businesses, educational institutions and industry as well as individuals: a 3D printer can be thought of as a suspended hot glue gun that travels around and applies layer upon layer of melted plastic to locally print any object. The "ink" for the 3D printer is a thin plastic filament that is melted in the Nozzle .However, 3D printing always produces waste, especially when developing new products or in the form of misprints. Normally, these plastic parts simply have to be thrown away. But with our machines, the plastic waste can be shredded, melted down, cooled and finally wound onto spools so that the material can be directly processed again with the 3D printer into a completely new object. For example, a dental practice can use the 3D printer to print one-time use dental models and use the material for the next models instead of disposing of it. This not only protects the environment, but also reduces costs. The recycling of plastic is also a present topic in research, because with sufficient scientific basis a solution to the plastic waste problem can be achieved on a large scale. Therefore, our modular machine system is equipped with features that are exactly tailored to the requirements of universities, institutes and laboratories. All process parameters can be adjusted and important measurement data can be continuously monitored and recorded. This is made possible by our smart machine control system, which makes the complex process of melting plastic into filament as simple and transparent as possible. All JARVIS machines involved in the process communicate with each other via Wifi and can thus be controlled from a single app. In addition, the numerous parameters are completely automated to guarantee high-quality filament is produced for the 3D printer. In the future, we want to combine the entire production line for recycling plastic into 3D printing filament in a single compact machine, the "JARVIS Tower". This will also allow individual consumers to produce 3D printer material locally on a small scale and recycle their 3D printing waste. The vision is to even be able to process household waste with our machines.