Study on the laser sintering process of veined red snail/polycaprolactone composite powder

Abstract As an aquaculture waste, the veined red snail achieves significant ecological burden reduction through recycling. Compared with polycaprolactone (PCL), it boasts greater environmental and economic advantages. Veined red snail powder with different proportions was added to PCL—a common material for manufacturing bone scaffolds—and laser sintering technology was used to prepare veined red snail powder/PCL composite powder laser-sintered parts. Based on single-factor experiments, the process was optimized using the response surface methodology, and the parts with different veined red snail powder additions were studied. The results show that under the process conditions of laser power 12.25 W, scanning speed 0.7 m s −1 , scanning spacing 0.14 mm, and layer thickness 0.17 mm, the tensile strength of the laser-sintered part reaches 7.59 ± 0.16 MPa, with an error of 1.93% compared with the model prediction value. Under these process conditions, the laser-sintered parts with different veined red snail powder additions were characterized separately. The addition of shell powder effectively reduces the economic cost of the laser-sintered parts and significantly improves their surface hardness and hydrophilicity. When the addition amount ranges from 0 to 25 wt%, the hardness increases by up to 32.08% relative to pure PCL parts, and the hydrophilicity (contact angle) changes from 87.86 ± 0.53°to 72.58 ± 0.95°(a smaller contact angle indicates better hydrophilicity).