REUSING WASTE POLYPROPYLENE
BY USING A NEW ADDITIVE
Project acronym: REPOLY
Competition/Project ID: PN-II-PT-PCCA--2012
Nr. proiect: 67/2012
Partners:
- Institutul de Cercetari pentru Acoperiri Avansate – ICAA SA
- Institutul de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Chimie si Petrochimie, ICECHIM Bucuresti
- Universitatea Politehnica Bucuresti
- Institutul de Cercetari Produse Auxiliare Organice, ICPAO Medias
Project Coordinator: Institutul de Cercetare-Dezvoltare pentru Chimie si Petrochimie, ICECHIM Bucuresti
Project responsible from ICPAO: ing. Olimpiu Blajan
The main purpose of this project is to reintroduce polypropylene recovered after use, in the economic cycle as a high performance composite material. For alloying the component in the melt, it will be used the current industrial technology. The project consists in obtaining new block – copolymers styrene – isoprene with thermoplastic elastomeric properties for an advanced recycling of recovered polypropylene. A new technology is proposed for producing block – copolymers styrene – isoprene – composite materials from recovered polypropylene with a very high impact resistance in special under 0 oC. Recycled composite material is cheaper and it presents impact resistance much higher (2 or 4 time higher) than the current form of propylene, initially used in production according to recent experimental results. Therefore, recycling of waste polypropylene may be carried out with favorable effects on depollution and environmental protection.
This research focuses on determination of molecular and compositional parameters of block copolymers, styrene – isoprene which are resulting from polypropylene composites with optimal recovery. Block – copolymers styrene – isoprene syntheses will be made in solution, by sequential anionic polymerization of monomers whit n – Bu - Ly as initiator, allowing block – copolymers accurate and reproducible. The molecular weights of polystyrene and poly isoprene block are well defined with narrow distribution.
Polymerization in solution is a modern technique with low consumption of clean water and solvent is fully recovered at the end of synthesis of block – copolymers styrene – isoprene and then reused. In this way the resource is maintained and the environment is not polluted with wastewater.
This block – copolymers can be obtained with certain structures and physic – mechanical properties, so that the alloying of the melt with recovered polypropylene will get composites with high impact resistance.
Site: REPOLY