Reactive Extrusion of Polyethylene Terephthalate Waste and Investigation of Its Thermal and Mechanical Properties after Treatment
This study investigates treating polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste water bottles with different mass of ethylene glycol (EG) using reactive extrusion technique at a temperature of 260°C. The study puts emphases on evaluating the thermal, mechanical, and chemical characteristics of the treated polyethylene terephthalate. The properties of the treated PET from the extruder were analyzed using FT-IR, TGA, DSC, and nanoindentation. The melt flow indexes (MFI) of both treated and untreated PET were also measured and compared. Thermal properties such as melting temperature (Tm) for treating PET showed an inversely proportional behavior with the EG concentrations. The FT-IR analysis was used to investigate the formation of new linkages like hydrogen bonds between PET and EG due to the hydroxyl and carbonyl groups. Nanoindentation results revealed that both the mechanical characteristics, elastic modulus and hardness, decrease with increasing EG concentration. On the other hand, the melt flow index of treated PET exhibited an increase with increasing EG concentration in the PET matrix.
Other Information
Published in: International Journal of Chemical Engineering
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
See article on publisher's website: https://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2017/5361251
Funding
Open Access funding provided by the Qatar National Library.
History
Language
- English
Publisher
HindawiPublication Year
- 2017
License statement
This Item is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.Institution affiliated with
- Hamad Bin Khalifa University
- College of Science and Engineering - HBKU