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Thermomechanical degradation of filled polypropylene
Author(s) -
La Mantia F.P.,
Tzankova Dintcheva N.
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
macromolecular symposia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.257
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1521-3900
pISSN - 1022-1360
DOI - 10.1002/masy.200390094
Subject(s) - polypropylene , materials science , viscosity , degradation (telecommunications) , composite material , filler (materials) , polymer , polymer degradation , stress (linguistics) , reduced viscosity , telecommunications , linguistics , philosophy , computer science
The main problem in post‐consumer plastics recycling is due to the thermomechanical stress acting on the melt during the reprocessing operations. The macromolecules break because of the temperature and of the mechanical stress. The extent of degradation is then correlated to the level of mechanical stress which, in turn, is proportional to the viscosity of the melt. The presence of fillers increases the viscosity of the polymers and then it is expected that the level of thermomechanical degradation of these systems is larger than that of the unfilled material. In this work the thermomechanical degradation kinetic of a polypropylene sample is investigated as a function of the calcium carbonate content. It is shown that the decrease of viscosity, that is the decrease of molecular weight, is directly related to the increase of viscosity due to the filler content. The worsening of the mechanical properties are consistent with the change of viscosity.