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Polypropylene Contamination in Post-Consumer Polyolefin Waste: Characterisation, Consequences and Compatibilisation

Plastic recycling strikes a balance between functional, mass producible products and environmental sustainability and is pegged by governments for rapid expansion. However, ambitious targets on recycled material adoption across new markets are at odds with the often heterogenous properties of contam...

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Autores principales: Karaagac, Erdal, Jones, Mitchell P., Koch, Thomas, Archodoulaki, Vasiliki-Maria
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8401875/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34451165
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13162618
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author Karaagac, Erdal
Jones, Mitchell P.
Koch, Thomas
Archodoulaki, Vasiliki-Maria
author_facet Karaagac, Erdal
Jones, Mitchell P.
Koch, Thomas
Archodoulaki, Vasiliki-Maria
author_sort Karaagac, Erdal
collection PubMed
description Plastic recycling strikes a balance between functional, mass producible products and environmental sustainability and is pegged by governments for rapid expansion. However, ambitious targets on recycled material adoption across new markets are at odds with the often heterogenous properties of contaminated regranulates. This study investigated polypropylene (PP) contamination in post-consumer low-density polyethylene (PE-LD) and mixed polyolefin (PO) regranulates. Calibration curves were constructed and PP content, its effect on mechanical properties and property recovery in compatibilised material assessed. FT-IR band ratios provided more reliable estimations of PP content than DSC melt enthalpy, which suffered considerable error for PP copolymers. PE-LD regranulates contained up to 7 wt.% PP contamination and were considerably more brittle than virgin PE-LD. Most mixed PO regranulates contained 45–95 wt.% PP and grew more brittle with increasing PP content. Compatibilisation with 5 wt.% ethylene-based olefin block copolymer resulted in PE-LD blends resembling virgin PE-LD and considerable improvements in the properties of mixed PO blends. These results illustrate the prevalence of PP in recycled PE, challenges associated with its quantification, effect on mechanical properties, and compatibilisation viability, thereby representing an important step towards higher quality regranulates to meet the recycling demands of tomorrow.
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spelling pubmed-84018752021-08-29 Polypropylene Contamination in Post-Consumer Polyolefin Waste: Characterisation, Consequences and Compatibilisation Karaagac, Erdal Jones, Mitchell P. Koch, Thomas Archodoulaki, Vasiliki-Maria Polymers (Basel) Article Plastic recycling strikes a balance between functional, mass producible products and environmental sustainability and is pegged by governments for rapid expansion. However, ambitious targets on recycled material adoption across new markets are at odds with the often heterogenous properties of contaminated regranulates. This study investigated polypropylene (PP) contamination in post-consumer low-density polyethylene (PE-LD) and mixed polyolefin (PO) regranulates. Calibration curves were constructed and PP content, its effect on mechanical properties and property recovery in compatibilised material assessed. FT-IR band ratios provided more reliable estimations of PP content than DSC melt enthalpy, which suffered considerable error for PP copolymers. PE-LD regranulates contained up to 7 wt.% PP contamination and were considerably more brittle than virgin PE-LD. Most mixed PO regranulates contained 45–95 wt.% PP and grew more brittle with increasing PP content. Compatibilisation with 5 wt.% ethylene-based olefin block copolymer resulted in PE-LD blends resembling virgin PE-LD and considerable improvements in the properties of mixed PO blends. These results illustrate the prevalence of PP in recycled PE, challenges associated with its quantification, effect on mechanical properties, and compatibilisation viability, thereby representing an important step towards higher quality regranulates to meet the recycling demands of tomorrow. MDPI 2021-08-06 /pmc/articles/PMC8401875/ /pubmed/34451165 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13162618 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/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 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Karaagac, Erdal
Jones, Mitchell P.
Koch, Thomas
Archodoulaki, Vasiliki-Maria
Polypropylene Contamination in Post-Consumer Polyolefin Waste: Characterisation, Consequences and Compatibilisation
title Polypropylene Contamination in Post-Consumer Polyolefin Waste: Characterisation, Consequences and Compatibilisation
title_full Polypropylene Contamination in Post-Consumer Polyolefin Waste: Characterisation, Consequences and Compatibilisation
title_fullStr Polypropylene Contamination in Post-Consumer Polyolefin Waste: Characterisation, Consequences and Compatibilisation
title_full_unstemmed Polypropylene Contamination in Post-Consumer Polyolefin Waste: Characterisation, Consequences and Compatibilisation
title_short Polypropylene Contamination in Post-Consumer Polyolefin Waste: Characterisation, Consequences and Compatibilisation
title_sort polypropylene contamination in post-consumer polyolefin waste: characterisation, consequences and compatibilisation
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8401875/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34451165
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym13162618
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