Hi all,
i’m planning to print a coffe mug and, besides the heat problem, i wonder if anyone knows about the risks concerning Bisphenol A or ftalaten (dutch:‘weekmakers’) in plastics.
cheers,
Teun
Hey Teun,
next to the chemicals you listed, there might be a host of other impurities introduced into normal filament, usually during the extrusion process. That’s why I would highly recommend you go for an FDA-approved material. Taulman with their 680 and Colorfabb with their XT are the first that come to my mind. A different question is, whether the mug will then resist boiling hot coffee. Personally I have made some teabag-trays out of (non-FDA) ABS before and those held up fine, even in the dishwasher. However, looking at the Tg’s of those materials it does not seem like a smart idea, they will probably both melt into a clump within a few minutes. Maybe there is an FDA-approved high temperature material like ABS or PC somewhere out there that I have not heard of before?
Hope this helps.
Sincerely,
Jonas
MB3D
3
You should be able to use Colorfabb NGEN. It securely holds up to temperatures of 80C (Colorfabb XT is around 70C). In both cases that’s the temperature point at which the material can be deformed and then it would stay in the deformed shape after cooling. This doesn’t mean, that the materials (both have several FDA approvals) will dissolve or release anything toxic or taste alternating into the coffee. I also don’t think that your coffee can heat the mug up to 80C. The coffee would have to be a lot hotter to heat up the mug before the coffee itself cools down below 80C. Secondly mugs do usually have a lot of surface area and less volume, meaning they have a large area to get air-cooled from and a small thickness means that the heated area is easier cooled by the cooler outside. If you want to go really safe you would have to Google for foodsafe plastics with a high glass transition temperature, however I don’t think that you’ll find a whole lot other then the two named above. Lastly you can go with a different material like ceramics or metals, but those prints would probably cost a lot.
