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The impact of impurities on the mechanical properties of recycled polyethylene
Author(s) -
Thoden van Velzen Eggo Ulphard,
Chu Sharon,
Alvarado Chacon Fresia,
Brouwer Marieke T.,
Molenveld Karin
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
packaging technology and science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.365
H-Index - 50
eISSN - 1099-1522
pISSN - 0894-3214
DOI - 10.1002/pts.2551
Subject(s) - bottle , polyethylene , high density polyethylene , materials science , impact resistance , raw material , low density polyethylene , composite material , polyethylene terephthalate , composition (language) , mold , chemistry , organic chemistry , linguistics , philosophy
The mechanical properties of mechanically recycled polyethylene (rPE) were studied in relation to the composition of the feedstock. This composition varied in six steps from only bottle bodies from a single type of high‐density polyethylene (HDPE) to the complete composition of an industrially sorted polyethylene (PE) product, including other packaging components, other PE‐based packages, sorting faults and residual waste. The rPE with the highest impact resistance was made from the single‐grade bottle bodies. The addition of bodies made from other types of PE already reduced the impact resistance with 11%. All the other stepwise additions of packaging components and faultily sorted objects caused the impact resistance to decrease further. Conversely, the elongation at break grew with the stepwise addition of these packaging components and faultily sorted objects. From the used methods, the best analysis method to accurately determine the polymeric composition of the rPE was found to be near‐infrared‐assisted flake analysis. This method can not only be used to determine the polymeric composition, but due to the strong correlation with the impact resistance, it is also a valuable indicator for the expected mechanical properties of rPE.