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Interference of Biodegradable Plastics in the Polypropylene Recycling Process

Recycling polymers is common due to the need to reduce the environmental impact of these materials. Polypropylene (PP) is one of the polymers called ‘commodities polymers’ and it is commonly used in a wide variety of short-term applications such as food packaging and agricultural products. That is w...

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Autores principales: Samper, María Dolores, Bertomeu, David, Arrieta, Marina Patricia, Ferri, José Miguel, López-Martínez, Juan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6213196/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30279367
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma11101886
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author Samper, María Dolores
Bertomeu, David
Arrieta, Marina Patricia
Ferri, José Miguel
López-Martínez, Juan
author_facet Samper, María Dolores
Bertomeu, David
Arrieta, Marina Patricia
Ferri, José Miguel
López-Martínez, Juan
author_sort Samper, María Dolores
collection PubMed
description Recycling polymers is common due to the need to reduce the environmental impact of these materials. Polypropylene (PP) is one of the polymers called ‘commodities polymers’ and it is commonly used in a wide variety of short-term applications such as food packaging and agricultural products. That is why a large amount of PP residues that can be recycled are generated every year. However, the current increasing introduction of biodegradable polymers in the food packaging industry can negatively affect the properties of recycled PP if those kinds of plastics are disposed with traditional plastics. For this reason, the influence that generates small amounts of biodegradable polymers such as polylactic acid (PLA), polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) and thermoplastic starch (TPS) in the recycled PP were analyzed in this work. Thus, recycled PP was blended with biodegradables polymers by melt extrusion followed by injection moulding process to simulate the industrial conditions. Then, the obtained materials were evaluated by studding the changes on the thermal and mechanical performance. The results revealed that the vicat softening temperature is negatively affected by the presence of biodegradable polymers in recycled PP. Meanwhile, the melt flow index was negatively affected for PLA and PHB added blends. The mechanical properties were affected when more than 5 wt.% of biodegradable polymers were present. Moreover, structural changes were detected when biodegradable polymers were added to the recycled PP by means of FTIR, because of the characteristic bands of the carbonyl group (between the band 1700–1800 cm(−1)) appeared due to the presence of PLA, PHB or TPS. Thus, low amounts (lower than 5 wt.%) of biodegradable polymers can be introduced in the recycled PP process without affecting the overall performance of the final material intended for several applications, such as food packaging, agricultural films for farming and crop protection.
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spelling pubmed-62131962018-11-14 Interference of Biodegradable Plastics in the Polypropylene Recycling Process Samper, María Dolores Bertomeu, David Arrieta, Marina Patricia Ferri, José Miguel López-Martínez, Juan Materials (Basel) Article Recycling polymers is common due to the need to reduce the environmental impact of these materials. Polypropylene (PP) is one of the polymers called ‘commodities polymers’ and it is commonly used in a wide variety of short-term applications such as food packaging and agricultural products. That is why a large amount of PP residues that can be recycled are generated every year. However, the current increasing introduction of biodegradable polymers in the food packaging industry can negatively affect the properties of recycled PP if those kinds of plastics are disposed with traditional plastics. For this reason, the influence that generates small amounts of biodegradable polymers such as polylactic acid (PLA), polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) and thermoplastic starch (TPS) in the recycled PP were analyzed in this work. Thus, recycled PP was blended with biodegradables polymers by melt extrusion followed by injection moulding process to simulate the industrial conditions. Then, the obtained materials were evaluated by studding the changes on the thermal and mechanical performance. The results revealed that the vicat softening temperature is negatively affected by the presence of biodegradable polymers in recycled PP. Meanwhile, the melt flow index was negatively affected for PLA and PHB added blends. The mechanical properties were affected when more than 5 wt.% of biodegradable polymers were present. Moreover, structural changes were detected when biodegradable polymers were added to the recycled PP by means of FTIR, because of the characteristic bands of the carbonyl group (between the band 1700–1800 cm(−1)) appeared due to the presence of PLA, PHB or TPS. Thus, low amounts (lower than 5 wt.%) of biodegradable polymers can be introduced in the recycled PP process without affecting the overall performance of the final material intended for several applications, such as food packaging, agricultural films for farming and crop protection. MDPI 2018-10-02 /pmc/articles/PMC6213196/ /pubmed/30279367 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma11101886 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Samper, María Dolores
Bertomeu, David
Arrieta, Marina Patricia
Ferri, José Miguel
López-Martínez, Juan
Interference of Biodegradable Plastics in the Polypropylene Recycling Process
title Interference of Biodegradable Plastics in the Polypropylene Recycling Process
title_full Interference of Biodegradable Plastics in the Polypropylene Recycling Process
title_fullStr Interference of Biodegradable Plastics in the Polypropylene Recycling Process
title_full_unstemmed Interference of Biodegradable Plastics in the Polypropylene Recycling Process
title_short Interference of Biodegradable Plastics in the Polypropylene Recycling Process
title_sort interference of biodegradable plastics in the polypropylene recycling process
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6213196/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30279367
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ma11101886
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