sustainable micro-manufacturing of micro-components via micro electrical discharge machining采用可持续最通过微电火花加工.pdf

Sustainability 2011, 3, 2456-2469; doi:10.3390/su3122456 OPEN ACCESS sustainability ISSN 2071-1050 /journal/sustainability Article Sustainable Micro-Manufacturing of Micro-Components via Micro Electrical Discharge Machining Francesco Modica, Valeria Marrocco, Giacomo Copani and Irene Fassi * Institute of Industrial Technologies and Automation, National Research Council (ITIA-CNR), Via Bassini 15, Milano 20133, Italy; E-Mails: francesco.modica@r.it (F.M.); valeria.marrocco@r.it (V.M.); giacomo.copani@r.it (G.C.) * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: irene.fassi@r.it; Tel.: +39-02 Fax: +39-02 Received: 8 October 2011; in revised form: 28 November 2011 / Accepted: 1 December 2011 / Published: 13 December 2011 Abstract: Micro-manufacturing emerged in the last years as a new engineering area with the potential of increasing peoples’ quality of life through the production of innovative micro-devices to be used, for example, in the biomedical, micro-electronics or telecommunication sectors. The possibility to decrease the energy consumption makes the micro-manufacturing extremely appealing in terms of environmental protection. However, despite this common belief that the micro-scale implies a higher sustainability compared to traditional manufacturing processes, recent research shows that some factors can make micro-manufacturing processes not as sustainable as expected. In particular, the use of rare raw materials and the need of high