Abstract:
This work studied process-ability, rheology, thermal, mechanical and morphological properties of two different commercial PVC compounds blended with reprocessed and post-consumer PVC bottles. It was found that reprocessed PVC bottles blended with PVC pipe grade improved the flow properties, tensile strength and impact strength as the blends showed ductile failure on fractured surface of the blend samples. The glass transition temperature (Tg) and onset of decomposition temperature (Td) increased with higher recycled PVC bottles. In the case of post-consumer PVC bottles, decreases in impact and tensile strength were observed as a result of impurities from the recycled PVC bottles. Both PVC blends were encountered a weathering test using an irradiated UV light at a wavelength 313nm for photo-degradation analysis. It was found that a number of conjugated double bonds occurred in the PVC chain and these increased with irradiation times. A separate investigation was carried out by melt-blending PVC with different concentrations of LDPE and the effect of extrusion number was studied,. It was found that the resulting blends gave a formation of LDPE-g-PVC graft copolymer, via a macro radical cross-recombination from thermal degradations of both PVC and LDPE.