Preparation and selective laser sintering of bamboo flour/copolyester composite and post-processing

A new type of biocomposite, bamboo flour/copolyester (BFCP) composite for selective laser sintering (SLS (TM)) was studied in this article. The bamboo flour was made from the bamboo residual of the bamboo production collected from a chopsticks factory. The BFCP composites of three mixture ratios (20/80, 25/75, and 30/70 (wt/wt)) were processed by SLS (TM). The proper processing parameters were determined by single-layer sintering methods. The mechanical properties of test specimens made from BFCP composites of three mixture ratios have been investigated. The results demonstrated that the mechanical properties of the specimens made by BFCP composite of 20/80 (wt/wt) were the best among those of the three mixture ratios and the average tensile strength, flexural strength, and impact strength of the specimens made from BFCP composite of 20/80 (wt/wt) were up to 4.14 MPa, 11.02 MPa, and 0.84 kJ m(-2), respectively. The mechanical properties of specimens are extremely improved through infiltrating epoxy resin.