The growing need of multifunctional materials with tailor made properties led in the last decades to the development of novel commercial polymer blends, possessing superior physical properties with respect to traditional matrices and showing economical advantages with respect to the synthesis of new plastics. Due to the progressive increase of the environmental concerns on the management of plastic wastes, the difficulties in the sorting technologies and the limited chemical compatibility between the greatest part of polymer pairs, the technical potential of polymer blends often remains unexploited when the recycling stage is considered. In some cases, also the addition of compatibilizers to recycled blends does not represent a satisfactory solution to retain and/or tailor their properties. The aim of this review is that to perform a critical analysis of the potentialities of polymer blends recycling. After an introductive section on the problems and the definitions of plastics recycling, some basic concepts about the physical behaviour of polymer blends are reported. The third section of the review is focused on the analysis of the mechanical recycling of polymer blends, and a general distinction between recycling techniques applied to compatible and un-compatible polymer blends is performed. In this chapter, also the analysis of the recycling potential of commingled plastics deriving from unsorted wastes and of the effect of the thermal reprocessing on the morphological and thermo-mechanical behaviour of polymer blends is reported. Considering the increasing importance of bioplastics in the modern society, the fourth chapter of this review is focused on the mechanical and chemical recycling of blends containing bioplastics, with particular attention to polylactic acid (PLA) and thermoplastic starch (TPS) based blends. The key aspects of the recycling technologies applied to polymer blends and the future perspectives are summarized in the last section of the review.

Recycling of polymer blends / Dorigato, A.. - In: ADVANCED INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING POLYMER RESEARCH. - ISSN 2542-5048. - 4:2(2021), pp. 53-69. [10.1016/j.aiepr.2021.02.005]

Recycling of polymer blends

Dorigato A.
2021-01-01

Abstract

The growing need of multifunctional materials with tailor made properties led in the last decades to the development of novel commercial polymer blends, possessing superior physical properties with respect to traditional matrices and showing economical advantages with respect to the synthesis of new plastics. Due to the progressive increase of the environmental concerns on the management of plastic wastes, the difficulties in the sorting technologies and the limited chemical compatibility between the greatest part of polymer pairs, the technical potential of polymer blends often remains unexploited when the recycling stage is considered. In some cases, also the addition of compatibilizers to recycled blends does not represent a satisfactory solution to retain and/or tailor their properties. The aim of this review is that to perform a critical analysis of the potentialities of polymer blends recycling. After an introductive section on the problems and the definitions of plastics recycling, some basic concepts about the physical behaviour of polymer blends are reported. The third section of the review is focused on the analysis of the mechanical recycling of polymer blends, and a general distinction between recycling techniques applied to compatible and un-compatible polymer blends is performed. In this chapter, also the analysis of the recycling potential of commingled plastics deriving from unsorted wastes and of the effect of the thermal reprocessing on the morphological and thermo-mechanical behaviour of polymer blends is reported. Considering the increasing importance of bioplastics in the modern society, the fourth chapter of this review is focused on the mechanical and chemical recycling of blends containing bioplastics, with particular attention to polylactic acid (PLA) and thermoplastic starch (TPS) based blends. The key aspects of the recycling technologies applied to polymer blends and the future perspectives are summarized in the last section of the review.
2021
2
Dorigato, A.
Recycling of polymer blends / Dorigato, A.. - In: ADVANCED INDUSTRIAL AND ENGINEERING POLYMER RESEARCH. - ISSN 2542-5048. - 4:2(2021), pp. 53-69. [10.1016/j.aiepr.2021.02.005]
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11572/336673
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