The high price of petroleum, overconsumption of plastic products, recent climate change regulations, the lack of landfill spaces in addition to the ever-growing population are considered the driving forces for introducing sustainable biodegradable solutions for greener environment. Due to the harmful impact of petroleum waste plastics on human health, environment and ecosystems, societies have been moving towards the adoption of biodegradable natural based polymers whose conversion and consumption are environmentally friendly. Therefore, biodegradable biobased polymers such as poly(lactic acid) (PLA) and polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) have gained a significant amount of attention in recent years. Nonetheless, some of the vital limitations to the broader use of these biopolymers are that they are less flexible and have less impact resistance when compared to petroleum-based plastics (e.g., polypropylene (PP), high-density polyethylene (HDPE) and polystyrene (PS)). Recent advances have shown that with appropriate modification methods—plasticizers and fillers, polymer blends and nanocomposites, such limitations of both polymers can be overcome. This work is meant to widen the applicability of both polymers by reviewing the available materials on these methods and their impacts with a focus on the mechanical properties. This literature investigation leads to the conclusion that both PLA and PHAs show strong candidacy in expanding their utilizations to potentially substitute petroleum-based plastics in various applications, including but not limited to, food, active packaging, surgical implants, dental, drug delivery, biomedical as well as antistatic and flame retardants applications.

Part count reduction (PCR) is one of the typical motivations for using additive manufacturing (AM) processes. However, the implications and trade-offs of employing AM for PCR are not well understood. The deficits are mainly reflected in two aspects: (1) lifecycle-effect analysis of PCR is rare and scattered; (2) current PCR rules lack full consideration of AM capabilities and constraints. To fill these gaps, this paper first summarizes the main effect of general PCR (G-PCR) on lifecycle activities to make designers aware of potential benefits and risks and discusses in a point-to-point fashion the new opportunities and challenges presented by AM-enabled PCR (AM-PCR). Second, a new set of design rules and principles are proposed to support potential candidate detection for AM-PCR. Third, a dual-level screening and refinement design framework is presented aiming at finding the optimal combination of AM-PCR candidates. In this framework, the first level down-samples combinatory space based on the proposed new rules while the second one exhausts and refines each feasible solution via design optimization. A case study of a motorcycle steering assembly is considered to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design rules and framework. In the end, possible challenges and limitations of the presented design framework are discussed.