Regarding environmentally friendly materials, natural sourcing and recycling of raw materials along with improvement of component life cycle enhancement to reduce waste are often targeted in all engineering sectors. Environmentally friendly composites include green composites / nanocomposites currently used in a cross-sectional group of industries with increasing use over the next 10 years, namely:

1) Aerospace
2) Transportation
3) Consumer goods
4) Construction
5) Environmental remediation

Regarding manufacturing process, rapid prototyping allows designers/developers to provide an accurate idea of how the finished product will turn out before putting too much time and money into the prototype. Types of rapid prototyping include [2]:

1) Stereolithography (SLA) → a laser-cured photopolymer for materials such as thermoplastic-like photopolymers.
2) Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) → a laser-sintered powder for materials such as Nylon or TPU.
3) Direct Metal Laser Sintering (DMLS) → laser-sintered metal powder for materials like stainless steel, titanium, chrome, and aluminum.
4) Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) → fused extrusions of filaments like ABS, PC, and PPCU.
5) Multi Jet Fusion (MJF) → it is an inkjet array selective fusing across bed of nylon powder for Black Nylon 12.

This symposium focuses on innovations in the field of composite materials with a specific focus on Eco-Friendly and environmentally sustainable systems. Work focused on these activities in all composite fields are invited including polymer, metal, and ceramic matrix composites. Emphasis on sourcing raw materials in a sustainable way as well as development of composite materials for environmental sustainability are encouraged. Papers looking at both the development of new materials for structural applications, reduction in energy consumption, and increased component life along with discussions of novel methods to reuse existing materials are encouraged. Additionally, papers focusing on the characterization of such materials are also invited. All submissions should focus on the merging on composite materials and environmental impacts.

Specific Topics of interest include naturally sourced materials feedstock, recycled material feedstock, application of composite for reduced carbon footprint, development of novel materials to repurpose waste from other areas, eco-nanomaterials / nanocomposites, and selected rapid prototyping.

[1] https://sdgs.un.org/goals