It’s no secret that resin 3D printing is messy. Uncured resin is terrible for the environment, especially aquatic life, and recycling the isopropyl used to wash the resin has been impractical until now.

Jan Mrázek, a programmer and resin printing enthusiast, has created a device that can clean dissolved resin from IPA using the cardboard of a used roll of toilet paper. The device takes approximately two days to clean the alcohol, resulting in a block of cured resin and recycled IPA.

You can use the recycled IPA with your wash and cure station to clean up your next round of resin prints. Check out our guide to the best cure and wash stations.

Though Mrázek did come up with the ingenious idea for recycling resin-contaminated IPA, he warns that it is “more of an idea or a proof-of-concept rather than a complete solution. Also, I am no chemist, so I cannot guarantee that the presented procedure actually yields safe waste.”

Make Your Own

Mrázek has documented his journey and instructions on how to make the device in a blog post. Using an FDM printer, he was able to create a rolling machine. Here’s how it works in his own words:

“It’s a slowly rotating paper roll forming drum that is by 1/3 submerged in the dirty IPA. On top of the devices are high-power UV LEDs. The whole device is closed in an air-tight box with the IPA. As the paper tube slowly rotates, a thin layer of the dirty IPA forms on it.”

“It should have enough time for the IPA to evaporate. Once it reaches the top, the UV LEDs cure it. In this way, we simulate what a printer does ­– curing thin layer by thin layer. After a while, we should get all the reactive components from the bath onto the roll in a cured form.”

After the prototype, Mrázek built a second machine with more LEDs and a different motor. Since blogging about the project, Mrázek told All3DP that he’s not progressed much further and has been busy working on other projects.

Although it doesn’t seem like he will build another iteration of this cleaning device, perhaps there’s scope for someone else to pick up where he left off.