Maintaining mechanical properties through numerous recycling cycles of flame retarded engineering thermoplastics
Marc Leifer and Lein Tange of ICL-IP share some results on recent tests with different plastics
|
100.0 |
|
|
190.0 |
|
90.0 |
11 -- Ref PA66
6,6
30 30 %% GF GF
|
|
170.0 |
|
80.0 |
|
|
|
Impact J / m |
70.0
60.0
50.0
40.0
|
22 - Brominated PS
ATO PS , ATO
33 - Brominated PS PS , no , no ATO ATO
44 - Brominated Epoxy , ATO ,
|
Tensile strength [ Mpa ] |
150.0
130.0
110.0
|
|
30.0 |
55 - Brominated epoxy , no , no ATO ATO |
|
90.0 |
|
20.0 |
|
|
|
|
|
66 DEPAL - DEPAL |
|
70.0 |
|
10.0 |
|
|
|
0.0 50.0
100 % Fresh fresh Round 1 round1 Round 2 round2 Round 3 round3 Round 4 round4 100 % Fresh fresh Round 1 round1
Round 2 round 2 Round 3 round 3 Round 4 round 4
Reference Recycling
Reference
Recycling
Figure 1 – Recycling performance of different flame retardant systems for 30 % GFR PA 6,6 : Impact strength ( a ) & tensile strength ( b )
In recent years , the Circular Economy has become a prominent issue for modern societies in both developed and emerging countries . A major aspect of this is the ability of plastic-based articles to be recycled , thus enabling re-use and significant waste saving at the postconsumer stage . For fire safety reasons , the plastics that are used in electrical and electronic ( E & E ) applications must comply with stringent standards . Such compliance is achieved by introducing flame retardants ( FRs ) at the compounding stage , ensuring that injection moulded articles comply with these very standards . A major issue associated with the recycling of flame retarded compounds is the resilience of their properties , or , in other words , the extent to which recycled articles maintain their initial characteristics and , more specifically , their mechanical properties . We have been focusing in this research on three major E & E materials :
• UL-94 V0 glass fibre-reinforced ( GFR ) polyamide ( PA ) 6,6
• UL-94 V0 GFR polybutylene terephthalate ( BPT )
• UL-94 V0 acrylonitrile butadiene styrene ( ABS )
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