Determining the role of the method used to recycle polypropylene waste materials from automotive industry using sepiolite and zeolite fillers

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management (2021)Cite this article

Abstract

In this work, the effectiveness of a rapid recycling method of waste polypropylene (WPP) with the addition of inorganic fillers was investigated. The experiments were performed using three types of WPP and a mixture of them (MWPP), characterized by different amount of talc content. The influence of sepiolite (micrometric size) and zeolite (nanometric size) fillers addition on newly prepared materials was analysed by X-ray diffraction analysis (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (FE-SEM). Mechanical characterizations of all the filled compounds were also performed. The data indicate that the addition of low percentage (5%) of sepiolite or LTA zeolite improves some mechanical and rheological properties of WPP-recycled materials. However, the results also show that the simple mixing of wastes and additional fillers (without preparing pellets) has an influence on the recycling process.

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Affiliations

  1. Istituto di Metodologie per l’Analisi Ambientale-CNR, Tito Scalo, Potenza, Italy

    Claudia Belviso, Pietro Montano, Antonio Lettino & Francesco Cavalcante

  2. Istituto di Struttura della Materia-CNR, Rome, Italy

    Francesco Toschi

  3. Centro Ricerche FIAT-CRF, Orbassano, TO, Italy

    Vito Guido Lambertini, Antonino D. Veca & Elisabetta Moschetto

  4. Istituto di Struttura della Materia-CNR, Tito Scalo, Potenza, Italy

    Ambra Guarnaccio

Authors
  1. Claudia Belviso
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  2. Pietro Montano
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Belviso, C., Montano, P., Lettino, A. et al. Determining the role of the method used to recycle polypropylene waste materials from automotive industry using sepiolite and zeolite fillers. J Mater Cycles Waste Manag (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10163-021-01184-w

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Keywords

  • Recycled polypropylene
  • Sepiolite
  • Zeolite
  • Filler
  • Mechanical and rheological properties