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Recycling of Plastic Mixture Wastes as Carrier Resin for Short Glass Fiber Composites

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Abstract

This study investigates the recycling process of plastic mixture wastes of polyamide/polypropylene/polyethylene (PA/PP/PE) from the food packaging sector to produce composite materials. The production is a two-step process where composite pellets were first prepared by compounding the plastic wastes with short glass fibers (SGF) (7–40 wt%) and maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene (PPgMAH) (3–6 wt%) as a coupling agent using a twin screw extruder. The composite pellets were then injection molded to produce composite materials for different commercial and engineering applications. Rheological tests showed the importance of adding PPgMAH as compatibilizer during twin screw compounding. The use of 3 wt% of PPgMAH increases the viscosity of the extruded blends at low frequencies and consequently the mechanical properties of the composite material. Furthermore, the DSC results indicate that using PPgMAH as a coupling agent increases the nucleating role of the SGF by effectively distributing the fibers inside the matrix. Morphological results showed that the fibers have a good size distribution and were evenly distributed in the matrix with a good fiber–matrix adhesion. Tensile, flexural and impact results showed that SGF obviously improves the tensile strength and the tensile modulus of the recycled composite material.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been funded by Indevco PACT (Polymer Application Center for Technology) R&D Center and by LIRA program. We give special thanks to Dr. Roland Habchi from the Lebanese University and Dr. Jihad Reshmani from Balamand University for their help in the experimental tests.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mechanical Engineering Department, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Jounieh, Lebanon

    N. El Hajj & K. Saliba

  2. Polymer Application Center for Technology (PACT), Zouk Mosbeh, Lebanon

    S. Seif

  3. Chemical Engineering Department, Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Jounieh, Lebanon

    N. Zgheib

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  1. N. El Hajj
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  2. S. Seif
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  3. K. Saliba
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  4. N. Zgheib
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Correspondence to N. El Hajj.

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El Hajj, N., Seif, S., Saliba, K. et al. Recycling of Plastic Mixture Wastes as Carrier Resin for Short Glass Fiber Composites. Waste Biomass Valor 11, 2261–2271 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-018-0446-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12649-018-0446-z

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