Mechanical and Thermal Degradation-Related Performance of Recycled LDPE from Post-Consumer Waste

Abstract

This paper presents research aimed at laboratory experiments on static and cyclic fatigue testing of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) recovered from post-consumer waste in order to develop a recycled product exhibiting satisfactory mechanical and thermo-mechanical properties. The results of the cyclic fatigue tests set up to 80% of the maximum load in static tensile testing demonstrated satisfactory functionality of the recycled material developed by using the injection molding process. There was no significant change in the tensile strength under static and cyclic fatigue tests. Under cyclic loading, there was a quasi-static effect manifested by plastic deformation, and the displacement increased significantly. The static and cyclic tensile tests indicated improvement in the mechanical performance of the recycled LDPE as compared to the virgin material, owing to the high quality of the regranulates. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) was conducted to analyze the functional groups in virgin and recycled LDPE samples. The analysis showed no significant change in the transmittance spectra. The thermal degradation performance was also analyzed by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA). The results were quite similar for both virgin and recycled LDPE.