Practicality of physical recycling method for waste polymer composites exampled via high density polyethylene/automobile shredder residue composites

Abstract

With the booming of automobiles industry, the recycling of automobile shredder residue (ASR) with complicated constitutes gradually become an urgent issues owing to its difficulty for traditional recycling. Herein, solid-state shear milling (S3M) technology which can control the domain size of the various polymers in blend was applied to overcome the mismatch of viscosity and poor compatibility of ASR and thus modify the processability to match practical manufacturing. Resultantly, the melt processing of ASR was achieved and a high-density polyethylene (HDPE)/ASR composite was also prepared with more optimal mechanical properties (tensile strength: 53.2 MPa, impact strength: 36.9 kJ/m2), compared with commercially available recycled PE. This work not only provided a feasible application route for the recycling of ASR material, but also demonstrated the optional methodology for recycling polymer waste with complicated component via physical recycling way.