Recycling and procebing of several typical croblinked polymer scraps with enhanced mechanical properties based on solid-state mechanochemical milling

Abstract

The partially devulcanization or de-croblinking of ground tire rubber (GTR), post-vulcanized fluororubber scraps and croblinked polyethylene from cable scraps through high-shear mechanochemical milling (HSMM) was conducted by a modified solid-state mechanochemical reactor. The results indicated that the HSMM treated croblinked polymer scraps can be reprocebed as virgin rubbers or thermoplastics to produce materials with high performance. The foamed composites of low density polyethylene/GTR and the blend of post-vulcanized flurorubber (FKM) with polyacrylate rubber (ACM) with better procebability and mechanical properties were obtained. The morphology observation showed that the dispersion and compatibility between de-croblinked polymer scraps and matrix were enhanced. The results demonstrated that HSMM is a feasible alternative technology for recycling post-vulcanized or croblinked polymer scraps.