Sustainable in-situ recycling and IoT-based monitoring system of water-soluble metal working fluids

摘要

Improper recycling and disposal of water-soluble Metal Working Fluids (MWF) are hazardous to the environment leading to harmful effects on plant and animal life. Proper recycling and monitoring the usage of MWF is generally unaccomplished due to lack of knowledge and available data. A sustainable recycling process and its appropriate monitoring system is the need of the hour. The current research proposes and investigates a sustainable recycling and an in-situ Internet of Things (IoT)-based MWF monitoring system integrated on CNC turning machine for machining of mild steel specimens using HSS tool. The sustainable recycling of the MFW was achieved through the usage of membrane filtration coated with antibacterial silver nano-particles. Taguchi Design of Experiment is carried out for optimizing the coating of silver nano-particles on the membrane and selection of pore size of filtration membrane. Simultaneously, an intelligent MWF monitoring system was designed and developed based on IoT platform through the integration of Raspberry-pi, Arduino, sensors, such as pH probe, temperature, level, and turbidity sensors. Upon testing the system, it sensed the changes in the values of the pH, temperature, level, turbidity, and sent distress signals in the form of SMS alerts, during fluctuations in the said parameters while carrying out the machining operation. The research concluded that the proposed method of sustained recycling and IoT-based monitoring system of MWF when implemented at the industrial level could have positive repercussions to the environment.