XPS and SEM characterization for powder recycling within 3d printing process

In recent years, recycling the powder leftover within the additive manufacturing process has been attractive for both research, development and industry production. Powder recycling can significantly enhance the sustainability of the manufacturing process, reduce the cost and avoid producing metallic waste as a potential environmental hazard. The first step in reusing the recycled powders in the 3D printing process is to characterize the microstructure and surface quality of the powder for oxidation and impurity analysis. Here, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) have been used for the morphology and surface composition analysis of the 316L powders within the Aconity 3D printer. A new powder collection strategy has been introduced to collect powders from different locations in the powder bed: from the top most and surface of the parts and powder bed after the print terminated, from between the printed parts at different heights. The XPS measurements revealed that oxidation is a common in all the powders compared to virgin powder and more oxidation was detected from the powders collected on the very top of the leftover powder and from surface of the bed. The size of the particles does not change much but larger particles remained at the topmost surface. This finding would help in designing a protocol for collecting the recycled powder from the powder bed and it is suggested to follow a a procedure of collecting powders from the different sections of the powder bed in order to avoid mixing the most and least affected particles.