Mission

Objective

Create a new life cycle of the stone industry, a sustainable path that values culture and technical skills through materials and companies

Promote the recycling process

Fighting the waste of raw material and disposal costs

Reduce environmental impact

Designing a 3D printer that works with dense-fluid materials in the construction field

Identify a new eco label

Identify a new technology district

Identify a new technology cluster

Main objective is the development of a new productive process for the recycling of sludges produced during the industrial processing of Natural Stone products.

Nowadays, sludges deposits are mostly deposited in poorly controlled or uncontrolled dumps causing a significant environmental impact in producer regions.

Based on previous experience from research project at lab scale, a possible application for the sludges is the 3D printing solution.

Valorization of the sludges will be achieved by means of a new process of the products based on a new technology.

In this project, a pilot plan for 3D printing has been performed and the resulting sludge has been used as raw materials in SME.

Today the result of the pilot project certifies by a national accreditation body the level of quality of the “eco” material.

The final goal is the achievement, in a near future, of total recycling for natural stone sludges with the help of a new 3D printing technique.

Fallout

Recovery of waste of marble processing

Recycling of waste materials

Reduced disposal costs

Gain from the marketing of final products

New horizons for industrial production

New approaches of 3D printing

Strenght

Today the research in this area focus on the reuse of sludge using a drying process.

It’s developing a fabrication of new products based on the recycled sludges, includes bricks, self-mounting construction products, pre-cast products including concrete beams, joists, concrete bricks, panels, agglomerated stone and cement industry.

The final characteristics of those products respect to the conventional products in addition to being “eco” have all the advantages of 3D printing:

Greater innovation

ability to print prototypes in hours, obtain feedback, refine designs and repeat the cycle until you get a perfect result

Better communication

a realistic 3d model and color is able to convey far more information than a picture on your computer
creation of three-dimensional physical models for numerous applications in a fast, simple and convenient

Shorter time to market

3d printing more prototypes on demand streamlines design cycles

Lower development costs

lower costs for traditional processes of prototyping and manufacturing
early identification of design errors
reduce travel to production facilities

Customer acquisition

ability to show potential clients, sponsors and interest groups of realistic 3d models

It is a growing market to get the best for the customer.