Influence of ingredients on the properties of the flame retardant compound based on polyethylene

In this paper, the effects of a flame retardant system combining ATH/MPP (aluminum hydroxide/melamine phosphate) and the other additives such as zinc stearate (ZnSt) on some properties of flame retardant PE compound based on LDPE were studied. The total flame retardant content was 35% by weight. Mechanical properties (tensile at break, elongation at break), thermal stability, and fire resistance were determined by the respective methods ASTM D638, thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), scanning electron microscope (SEM), and UL-94 test. The obtained results showed that using the combination of ATH/MPP has increased the fire resistance and thermal stability of the PE compound. The sample CT7 (15%ATH/20%MPP/2%ZnSt) achieved the best fire resistance. The mechanical properties increased slightly when increasing the content of MPP and reached the maximum for samples containing only MPP. The SEM micrographs showed that the addition of zinc stearate improved the dispersion of ATH and MPP in the PE matrix. The effect of flame retardant additives and zinc stearate on the melt index value of the PE compound was also surveyed.

Effect of Hard Plastic Waste on the Quality of Recycled Polypropylene Blends

The recycling of plastic waste is undergoing fast growth due to environmental, health and economic issues, and several blends of post-consumer and post-industrial polymeric materials have been characterized in recent years. However, most of these researches have focused on plastic containers and packaging, neglecting hard plastic waste. This study provides the first experimental characterization of different blends of hard plastic waste and virgin polypropylene in terms of melt index, differential scan calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), mechanical properties (tensile, impact and Shore hardness) and Vicat softening test. Compared to blends based on packaging plastic waste, significant differences were observed in terms of melt flow index (about 10 points higher for hard plastic waste). Mechanical properties, in particular yield strain, were instead quite similar (between 5 and 9%), despite a higher standard deviation being observed, up to 10%, probably due to incomplete homogenization. Results demonstrate that these worse performances could be mainly attributed to the presence of different additives, as well as to the presence of impurities or traces of other polymers, other than incomplete homogenization. On the other hand, acceptable results were obtained for selected blends; the optimal blending ratio was identified as 78% post-consumer waste and 22% post-industrial waste, meeting the requirement for injection molding and thermoforming.

Production of a PET//LDPE Laminate Using a Reversibly Crosslinking Packaging Adhesive and Recycling in a Small-Scale Technical Plant

Multilayer packaging is an important part of the packaging market, but it is not recyclable with conventional methods since it is made of different thermodynamically immiscible materials. In this work, it was shown that it is possible to produce a PET//LDPE laminate in a pilot plant for lamination by using an adhesive consisting of maleimide- and furan-functionalized polyurethane prepolymers that cure through the Diels–Alder reaction. The material could then be delaminated in a small-scale recycling plant using a solvent-based recycling process by partially opening the Diels–Alder adducts through the influence of temperature. The PET and LDPE could be recovered without any adhesive residues before each material was regranulated, and in the case of the PE, a film was produced via cast film extrusion. The obtained PET granulate exhibited a slight, approximately 10%, decrease in molecular weight. However, since small amounts of LDPE could not be separated, compatibilization would still be required here for further use of the material. The obtained LDPE film was characterized by means of infrared spectrometry, differential scanning calorimetry, tensile testing, determination of the melt index, and molecular weight. The film showed lower crosslinking than usual for LDPE recycling and exhibited good mechanical properties. In this work, it was thus shown that upscaling of the laminate production with the modified adhesive and also its recycling at the pilot plant scale is possible and thus could be an actual option for recycling multilayer packaging.

Polypropylene composites filled with glass microspheres and basalt fiber

The physicomechanical and technological properties of polypropylene-based composites filled with basalt fibers (BF) and glass microspheres (GM) are studied. It is shown that the introduction of short BFs and glass microspheres into PPs while ensuring good “fiber-matrix” adhesion by adding maleic anhydride-grafted polypropylene (MAPP) leads to a significant increase in the elastic modulus and tensile yield strength. The impact strength of composites improves with increasing fiber content in the presence of GM. The melt index and thermomechanical stability of the developed composites increase.

THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATIC CHANGE ON GLACIAL, PROGLACIAL AND PARAGLACIAL SYSTEM AT COLLINS GLACIER, KING GEORGE ISLAND, ANTARCTICA

The analysis of glacial and ice-marginal system may contribute to understanding the impact of climatic change. The aim of this study is to investigate changes in glacial, proglacial and paraglacial system in response to the Collins glacier retreat, between the Little Ice Age (LIA) and 2070. Glacial geomorphological mapping reveals landforms that are diagnostic of terrestrial-terminating glacier former during LIA. Glacial and the proglacial systems were mapping to evaluate the ice-marginal evolution. The field measurement, satellite imagery, granulometric and morphoscopic sedimentary analysis and geomorphological data are analyzed. The Collins glacier surface topography has been surveyed by DGNSS during 11 years (1997/98-2008/09) and for glacier area estimation in 2030, 2050 and 2070 CE. The Collins glacier loss 1.4 km² in the period LIA-2018. Under an atmospheric warming scenario, using temperature melt index model the glacier will lose approximately 5% of its total area until 2030 (0.90 km²), 21% (3.60 km²) by 2050, and 35% (5.90 km²) by 2070 CE. Four sectors in the proglacial zone are identified: Sector 1 displays changes on the front of the glacier since the LIA, a push moraine in only one sector, presence of flutings and moraines of recession. Sector 2 showed shrinkage around 100 meters in the period LIA-2018, presenting recessional and push moraines of about 10 meters of height. Sector 3 showed 350 meters of the shrinkage since the LIA, and recessional moraines, and absence of the push moraines. Sector 4, showed 1500 meters of the shrinkage since the LIA, a push moraine of about 12 meters high. This behavior that occurs since the LIA, allows to validate the future scenario model. The ice-free areas could expand 1,4 km² by the end 2070 decade, if considered since LIA. However, it should be noted that if the glacier continues to retreat, the system will be subject to hydrological and sedimentary readjustments at various stages in the future.

Construction of a plastomer for the analysis of polypropylene fluidity under different temperatures and use of additives

A low-cost plastomer was built and analyzed the main factors that can improve its fluidity, such as the use of different specifications and additives. Thermoplastics are materials currently used everywhere, from simple applications such as making toys to aerospace applications. Among the usual thermoplastics in our daily lives we have polypropylene, widely used as raw material for the manufacture of various plastic materials. One of the factors that most interferes with the quality of PP in industrial use is its fluidityindex, measured by the use of plastomer, an extremely expensive equipment. From the analysis of various temperatures and percentages of additives it was possible to identify factors that improve its fluidity, improving industrial applicability. It is concluded that there is a direct relationship between the increase in the melt index (fluidity index) of the melt and the increase in temperature and additives by up to 1%, emphasizing that with 2% worse results can be obtained from the IF. This increase in the bottom IF can be explained by the theory of free volume, where the higher the temperature, the greater the free volume between the molecules and the lower their viscosity, that is, the easier their flow will be.

Effects of coupling agent on antioxidant properties and structure of PP/cotton stalk lignin composites

In this paper, the effects of coupling agent and lignin extracted from waste cotton stalks in Xinjiang on thermal-oxygen aging properties of polypropylene (PP) composites were studied. The melt index test and indoor thermal oxygen aging test was carried out on the samples treated with coupling agent. The mechanical properties, surface micromorphology, rheological properties and element composition of the materials before and after 30 days of aging were studied. The results showed that the titanate coupling agent was the best for improving the melt index and mechanical properties of PP/cotton stalk lignin composites. After the 30-day thermal oxygen aging test, the samples with 2% lignin had the best impact strength and retention rate of fracture elongation, reaching 68.9% and 77.3% respectively. The sample with 3% lignin content had the smoothen surface, no crack appeared. After aging, the increase of C=O was the least, and the crystal peak area decreased less.

Developing Soft Sensors for Polymer Melt Index in an Industrial Polymerization Process Using Deep Belief Networks

This paper presents developing soft sensors for polymer melt index in an industrial polymerization process by using deep belief network (DBN). The important quality variable melt index of polypropylene is hard to measure in industrial processes. Lack of online measurement instruments becomes a problem in polymer quality control. One effective solution is to use soft sensors to estimate the quality variables from process data. In recent years, deep learning has achieved many successful applications in image classification and speech recognition. DBN as one novel technique has strong generalization capability to model complex dynamic processes due to its deep architecture. It can meet the demand of modelling accuracy when applied to actual processes. Compared to the conventional neural networks, the training of DBN contains a supervised training phase and an unsupervised training phase. To mine the valuable information from process data, DBN can be trained by the process data without existing labels in an unsupervised training phase to improve the performance of estimation. Selection of DBN structure is investigated in the paper. The modelling results achieved by DBN and feedforward neural networks are compared in this paper. It is shown that the DBN models give very accurate estimations of the polymer melt index.