Investigation of Ultrafine Particle Emissions of Desktop 3D Printers in the Clean Room

It is getting more popular to use desktop 3D printers either at homes or offices, which may emit a large amount of particles when in use. This work aims to obtain accurate size-resolved particle emission rates from both single and two desktop 3D printers in a ten–thousand-level clean room, with acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) for the feedstock. Particle concentrations were measured at three different spots in the clean room. We found that the major size of particles produced by the 3D printers is less than 10 μm (PM10). The further it is from the printer, the higher the particle concentrations are. Moreover, the smaller the size of particles, the higher the concentration of particles, with the size ranged from 0.25 μm to 0.28 μm corresponding to the highest concentration. The maximum value of particle concentration is around 2.5×104/L for single printer and 4×104/L for two printers.