Thermo‐mechanical recycling of climbing ropes: A case study on a closed loop process for PA6

Abstract

Global warming has increasingly drastic consequences, especially in the Alps but also in the rest of the world. To reduce greenhouse gases, widespread recycling of plastic waste is becoming an essential necessity. This research investigates a possible recycling process for old climbing ropes made out of polyamide 6. Old climbing ropes were collected and processed with a twin screw extruder to fabricate recycled granulate. Investigating different shredding techniques showed that pretreatment with liquid nitrogen or water and liquid nitrogen are proven to be insufficient. A good shredding was achieved using a shredding‐granulator. Tensile test specimens had been fabricated out of the recycled granulate using an injection moulding process. The tensile tests showed a sufficient material quality and higher tensile strength than the virgin polyamide 6 used for the comparison. Tensile strength and Young's modulus increased, whereas the elongation at break decreased. A previous cleaning of the old ropes showed slightly better material properties of the recycled granulate.

Determination of the flexural properties of additively manufactured polyamide 12 components with antimicrobial titanium dioxide additives

“…For the production of the compounds, matrix material and additive were processed in the mixer for 1 : 45 hours at a temperature of 130 °C. These mixing parameters have already proven to be suitable in previous studies [11,15,16]. The polyamide 12 powder DuraForm PA (3D-Systems Inc., Germany) was selected as the matrix material since this material has been developed for usage in the selective laser sintering process.…”

“…In previous studies, the antibacterial effect and the tensile properties of the compounds have already been determined [15,16]. The aim of the present study is to investigate possible changes in the flexural properties of different polyamide 12 compounds when using titanium dioxide as an antimicrobial additive.…”