From Marble Waste to Eco-Friendly Filament for 3D Printing to Help Renaturalization of Quarries

Daniela Fico (), Daniela Rizzo, Valentina De Carolis, Francesca Lerario, Annalisa Di Roma and Carola Esposito Corcione
Additional contact information
Daniela Fico: Italian National Council of Research-Institute of Heritage Sciences (CNR-ISPC), Campus Ecotekne, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Daniela Rizzo: Department of Cultural Heritage, University of Salento, via D. Birago 64, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Valentina De Carolis: Department of Engineering for Innovation, University of Salento, P, Campus Ecotekne, s.p. 6 Lecce-Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Francesca Lerario: Department of Civil Engineering and Architectural Sciences (DICAR), Polytechnic of Bari, Via Amendola 126/B, 70126 Bari, Italy
Annalisa Di Roma: Department of Civil Engineering and Architectural Sciences (DICAR), Polytechnic of Bari, Via Amendola 126/B, 70126 Bari, Italy
Carola Esposito Corcione: Department of Engineering for Innovation, University of Salento, P, Campus Ecotekne, s.p. 6 Lecce-Monteroni, 73100 Lecce, Italy

Sustainability, 2025, vol. 17, issue 5, 1-15

Abstract: The excessive use of materials that are generally difficult to discard, such as stone materials, has caused growing ecological concern. Among these, marble is extracted from quarries, but when the raw material is exhausted, these places are deserted. For this reason, several measures have been adopted in recent years to requalify these areas. In addition, recent technological developments involve the creation of innovative green materials that privilege the circular economy and waste recycling. This research presents the development of innovative, sustainable filaments for the fused filament fabrication (FFF) printing technique from recycled marble waste (MW) and biocompostable and biodegradable polylactic acid (PLA) matrix. MW was added to the polymer in concentrations of 10 wt.%, 20 wt.%, and 30 wt.%, and the blends were extruded to develop innovative green filaments. The chemical/structural properties of the raw materials and the thermal and mechanical features of the new composites were investigated. Composites containing 10 and 20 wt.% of MW showed good printability. In contrast, extrusion and printing difficulties were observed with 30 wt.% of MW. Finally, this paper proposes a project to renaturalize and requalify a disused marble quarry located in Trani (Apulia, Italy) with 3D printing devices using the newly produced eco-filaments, which have better features. The main purpose of this article is to propose a concrete, economic, and sustainable application of 3D printing involving processes such as waste and by-product recycling and renaturalization of disused quarries, with both economic and environmental benefits.

Keywords: marble waste; circular economy; by-product valorization; sustainability; 3D printing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/5/1977/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/17/5/1977/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:17:y:2025:i:5:p:1977-:d:1599484

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().