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Polypropylene Post-Consumer Recyclate Compounds for Thermoforming Packaging Applications

Polypropylene (PP) plastic packaging waste consists of a variety of different plastic packaging products with a great span in rheological and mechanical behavior. Therefore, the resulting post-consumer recyclates usually show melt mass-flow rates (MFR) in the region of injection molding grades and i...

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Autores principales: Freudenthaler, Paul J., Fischer, Joerg, Liu, Yi, Lang, Reinhold W.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9862954/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36679226
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym15020345
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author Freudenthaler, Paul J.
Fischer, Joerg
Liu, Yi
Lang, Reinhold W.
author_facet Freudenthaler, Paul J.
Fischer, Joerg
Liu, Yi
Lang, Reinhold W.
author_sort Freudenthaler, Paul J.
collection PubMed
description Polypropylene (PP) plastic packaging waste consists of a variety of different plastic packaging products with a great span in rheological and mechanical behavior. Therefore, the resulting post-consumer recyclates usually show melt mass-flow rates (MFR) in the region of injection molding grades and intermediate mechanical properties. High-quality packaging applications demand a distinct property profile that is met by tailor-made PP grades and cannot be met by recyclates with intermediate performance. One such application with high market volume is high-stiffness thermoforming trays. The aim of this research was to blend intermediate-performance recyclates with a virgin PP grade to obtain compounds that fulfill the rheological and mechanical demands of this application. Three commercially available PP post-consumer recyclates were acquired and compounded with different blending ratios with a high stiffness, low MFR virgin PP grade. As the pure recyclates show different rheological properties, the blending ratios had to be adapted for each of them to fit into the MFR range of 2–4 g/10 min which is desirable for thermoforming applications. The resulting PP recyclate compounds show a distinct correlation of recyclate content with rheological and mechanical performance. However, the resulting property profile was directly dependent on the performance of the originally used recyclate. The best-performing recyclate could be used in a blending ratio of 65 m% recyclate content while adhering to both property limits, the MFR of 2–4 g/10 min and the lower bound tensile stiffness of 1500 MPa.
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spelling pubmed-98629542023-01-22 Polypropylene Post-Consumer Recyclate Compounds for Thermoforming Packaging Applications Freudenthaler, Paul J. Fischer, Joerg Liu, Yi Lang, Reinhold W. Polymers (Basel) Article Polypropylene (PP) plastic packaging waste consists of a variety of different plastic packaging products with a great span in rheological and mechanical behavior. Therefore, the resulting post-consumer recyclates usually show melt mass-flow rates (MFR) in the region of injection molding grades and intermediate mechanical properties. High-quality packaging applications demand a distinct property profile that is met by tailor-made PP grades and cannot be met by recyclates with intermediate performance. One such application with high market volume is high-stiffness thermoforming trays. The aim of this research was to blend intermediate-performance recyclates with a virgin PP grade to obtain compounds that fulfill the rheological and mechanical demands of this application. Three commercially available PP post-consumer recyclates were acquired and compounded with different blending ratios with a high stiffness, low MFR virgin PP grade. As the pure recyclates show different rheological properties, the blending ratios had to be adapted for each of them to fit into the MFR range of 2–4 g/10 min which is desirable for thermoforming applications. The resulting PP recyclate compounds show a distinct correlation of recyclate content with rheological and mechanical performance. However, the resulting property profile was directly dependent on the performance of the originally used recyclate. The best-performing recyclate could be used in a blending ratio of 65 m% recyclate content while adhering to both property limits, the MFR of 2–4 g/10 min and the lower bound tensile stiffness of 1500 MPa. MDPI 2023-01-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9862954/ /pubmed/36679226 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym15020345 Text en © 2023 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
Freudenthaler, Paul J.
Fischer, Joerg
Liu, Yi
Lang, Reinhold W.
Polypropylene Post-Consumer Recyclate Compounds for Thermoforming Packaging Applications
title Polypropylene Post-Consumer Recyclate Compounds for Thermoforming Packaging Applications
title_full Polypropylene Post-Consumer Recyclate Compounds for Thermoforming Packaging Applications
title_fullStr Polypropylene Post-Consumer Recyclate Compounds for Thermoforming Packaging Applications
title_full_unstemmed Polypropylene Post-Consumer Recyclate Compounds for Thermoforming Packaging Applications
title_short Polypropylene Post-Consumer Recyclate Compounds for Thermoforming Packaging Applications
title_sort polypropylene post-consumer recyclate compounds for thermoforming packaging applications
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9862954/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36679226
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/polym15020345
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