DEVELOPMENT OF 3D PRINTED EXTRUDER FOR ALUMINUM OXIDE CATALYST PELLET MOLDING

Extrusion is a versatile technique used to form materials with defined geometries, and is especially useful in the production of heterogeneous catalysts in pellet format. This work aims to adapt a benchtop extruder, produced by additive manufacturing process, for application in the conformation of aluminum oxide catalysts. The extruder model was obtained free of charge on the "Thingiverse" platform, created by Dominic Gundel, and printed in PLA using melt material deposition technology (3D printing), in addition, modifications of the model were made by the software (Fusion360®/Cura®), in order to improve the structure of the equipment. The assembled structure includes housing, extrusion channel, screw conveyor, NEMA 17 stepper motor and coupled traction system, operating at room temperature, with no heating required. The project seeks to offer a low-cost and customizable alternative for the conformation of ceramic or catalytic masses in academic or research environments with limited resources. So far, the printing and assembly stages of the main components have been completed. The next phase will be dedicated to the preparation of the extrudable pulp, based on the method described by Kawamura (2014), using aluminum oxide and different concentrations of starch as a binding and structuring agent. The proposal is to produce cylindrical pellets with a uniform diameter, which will later be dried, and can be calcined and evaluated for physical integrity and feasibility for catalytic tests