Abstract
This study reports the selective hydrophilization of the ABS/PC blend surface using the peroxide-sonochemical system and then its selective separation by froth flotation technique from other ABS-based plastics (ABS, ABS/PMMA) and PS/HIPS in electronic shredder residue (ESR). FT-IR and XPS measurements confirm that the hydrophilic moiety development on the ABS/PC surface led to increasing the wettability of ABS/PC and then decreased its floatability. The confocal scanning results also support the enhancement of microscale roughness of the treated ABS/PC surface. The enhanced surface roughness is attributed to the oxidative process which degrades hydrophobic moieties and promotes hydrophilic functional groups on the ABS/PC surface using commercial oxidant peroxide and ultrasound. This study also investigated removal of Br-containing compounds on the ABS/PC surface. The optimum conditions for selectively ABS/PC separation are peroxide concentration 2%, power cycle 70%, treatment time 5 min, temperature 50 °C, floating agent concentration 0.4 mg/L, flotation time 2 min, and airflow rate 0.5 L/min. ABS/PC was selectively separated from ESR styrene plastics with high recovery and purity of 98.9% and 99.8%, respectively. Hence, the developed novel surface treatments having removal of hazardous Br chemicals and none-formation of secondary pollutants should be applied for upgrading plastic recycling quality.
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All data generated or analyzed during this study are included in this published article (and its supplementary information files).
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Funding
This work was supported by the Korea Institute for Advanced of Technology (KIAT) grant funded by the Korea Government (MOTIE) (P0008421, 2020 The Company Development Program for Industry Specialist).
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Dr. Nguyen Thi Thanh Truc analyzed and interpreted the main data and was a major contributor in writing the manuscript. Prof. Hung Anh Le is responsible for data curation. Prof. Byeoung-Kyu Lee is a supervisor, taking responsibility for writing—review, and editing the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Thanh Truc, N., Le, H. & Lee, BK. Sono-oxidation treatment of hazardous ABS/PC surface for its selective separation from ESR styrene plastics. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 24771–24784 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11796-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-020-11796-8