Proceedings of 2005 lntcmational Symposium on Electrical Insulating

Materials, June 5-9, 2005, Kitakyushu, Japan

P2-40

Study of Electrical and Mechanical Properties of Recycled Polymer Blends

Jog0 H. Vilckas, Lucas G. Albiero, Sandra A. Cruz, Marcel0 M. Ueki and Maria Z a n h
Materials Engineering Department - DEMa
FederaI University of Sao Carlos UFSCar
Rod. Washington Luiz, km 235 - Sao CarlodSP - Brazil
E-mai 1: dmza@power.ufscar.br
MATERIALS AND METHODS
Abstract: Recycling of municipal solid waste plastic it
Three polymers were studied in this work:
is very important. In generally, recycled resin have a
HDPE, U P S and PP. They are named with subscript r
low values in the world market due an increasing in its
and v to indicate recycled and virgin resin respectively.
properties. In this way it is necessary studied methods
to preserve the properties of the materials and increased
The post-consumer materials were collected in the
the applicability of recycled material. In this work, we
selective collecting system existent in the Federal
studied electrical and mechanical properties of three
University of SZo Carlos - UFSCar. The used virgin
kinds of blends with recycled and virgin materials:
polymers HIPS (495 F), PP (RP 347) and HDPE (GM
HIPS, PP and HDPE. The recycled materials were
9450F) were supplied by BASF, Polibrasil and Ipiranga
obtained fiom post-consumer packaging, present in
Petroquimica S.A..
municipal solid waste.
Post consumer HDPE, PP and HIPS
packaging were sorted, ground, washed, dried and
INTRODUCTION
reprocessed without re-stabilization. The blends with
recycled and virgin material were done in a Haake
Reomix 600 batch mixer to the HIPS and PP, and in a
Mechanicat recycling of polyolefins fkom
single screw extruder (Gerst 24x25-D) to the HDPE.
municipal solid waste is the most common way to
The concentration used was 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% in
plastics recycling. This recycling stands out because,
weight of virgin material to a11 blends. Which sample
among all the materials, the plastics are the most
was hot-compressed at 180C to produce films with
susceptible to industrial reprocessing and also due,
thickness between 150 to 200pm for HIPS and PP, and
especially, to the high disposability of plastic items
40 to 60pm for HDPE. Volumetric resistivity was
(products or packaging). In spite of the countless
measured with a Hewlett-Packard High Resistence
attempts of recycIing the post-consumer plastics, the
Meter, model HP 4339B. at 500 Volts, 2 mA and 900 s.
recycled polymer has been characterized as a product of
The dielectric strength of 20 samples was measured to
low value. The recycling of these products, be it rigid or
the HDPE blends using SOOV/s, with the results treated
film plastic, is very complex due to the different present
by Weibull distribution. The
contamination, involving tasks that range since
The mechanica! properties were measured
separation, pre-wash, rinsing, grinding and drylng,
in an Instron machine, 5569 model, with SOOKg, using
care with effluents, so that afterwards the process itself
the ASTM D638. Impact strength was determined
may be started (agglomeration, extrusion, etc) to obtain
using a Ceast Resil-25 in Izod mode. The samples,
recycled material in an adequate format to the
having a notch of 2.44 to 2.64 nun, were obtained by
transformation industries. Usually, the manufacture
injection mold.
procedures of these residues involve substantial heating
and mechanical work that promote degradation
processes, which gradually deteriorate the final
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
properties of polymers and productivity during
The Figure 1 shows volumetric.electrical
processing [1,2]. In this way, it is very important and
urgent to study the recycling process. Technologies
conductivity variation as fimction of concentration of
must be development to contribute to increase the
HLPSr. It showed a slight decrease in the voiumetric
potentiality of recycled post-consumer thermoplastics
conductivity of HIESdHIPSv blends as compared to
applications and to preserve the properties of the
the virgin HLPS. The average volumetric condutivity
materialsl31.
vahes are of the order of magnitude of 10l6 Rcm
In this work, we studied electrica1 and
mechanical properties of three kinds of blends with
recycled and virgin materials: High Impact Polystyrene
(HIPS), Polypropylene (PP) and High Density
Polyethylene (HDPE). The recycled materials were
obtained from post-consumer packaging, present in
municipal solid waste.
~

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and 75% of recycled material are virtually the same (E

10'7Q.cm)compared to those for virgin resin. However,
when recycled HDPE concentration surpassed 75%,
volumetric resistivity values decrease by two orders o f
magnitude. It is important to note that even with this
change, the values found for all formulations fall
within the classification range for insulating materials
(10" - lO'*Q.cm). Findings also reveal that for the
75% and 100% formulations with recycled resin there
was an increase in standard deviation as compared to
the remaining formulations.
vigin

25

75

100

Recycled HIPS (%wt)

Figure 1 - Logarithm of the volumetric conductivity to

HIPS containing 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% of recycled
material.
Figure 2 shows the volumetric conductivity
values for he polypropylene samples. The virgin PP
displayed volumetric condutivity values in the order of
magnitude of IO-'' (IiRcm). The blends with 25 and
75% recycled PP presented smaller volumetric
conductivity than those of virgin PP. However, the most
remarkable aspect is the greater dispersion found in the
results in relation to the virgin PP, which reached up to
4 orders of magnitude. In the case of the HIPSr the
dispersion was in the same order of magnitude as that
of the virgin HIPS. These results indicate that some
additive existing in the recycled PP may have affected
this property, thus decreasing the quality of these
blends (PPVFPr).

vigin

25

$0

75

% r e w l e d HDPE

Figure 3 - Volumetric resistivity to HDPE containing 0,

25, 50, 75 and 100% of recycled material.
Figure 4 presents the Ey values that
correspond to the dielectric strength value for the
failure accumulated probability of 63%, obtained by the
maximum likelihood method, upper (Ef) and lower
(Ey)limits of 95% confidence interval. It also indicates
clearly the smallest value of the dielectric strength
(Efin) experimentally measured for all formulations.

100

Recycled PP (%wt)
Figure 2 - Logarithm of the volumetric conductivity to
PP containing 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100% of recycled
material.
Figure 3 shows the volumetric resistivity
values to virginhecycled HDPE blends in the 0, 25, 50,
75 and 100% proportions. Results in Figure 3 show
that the values for the formulations containing 25, 50,

% recycled HDPE

Figure 4 Ey values determined by the maximum

likelihood method for HDPE containing 0, 25, 50, 75,

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and 100% of recycled material.

100% of recycled material.

The comparison between the Ey values found

for 100% recycled HDPE and for the virgin resin shows
a decrease of approximately 17%. The 100% recycled
material is slightly superior to 75%, a difference
without statistical meaning since both are practically
within the 95% confidence interval. Similarly, the
variation between the virgin material and with 25% of
recycled resin is not significant. In addition, a decrease
can be verified in the values of E ~ with
the recycled
material weight fiaction. We know that considerable
differences between the E,, vaIues as compared with
those of Ey represent inferior electrical performance, as
in the case of the formulations containing 75% and
100% of recycled material which showed an
approximately 50% difference between these
parameters, whereas or the virgin resin this value was
of 16%. This is because, according to Weibull, the
weakest point (E~,,)determines the performance of the
whole system.
The decrease in Ey values with the recycled
material concentration in the virgin polymer can be
related to the presence of conductive impurities that
remained &om the synthesis process, recovery, and
processing (fillers, pigments, and additive) of the
recycled material. The presence of metals as revealed
by atomic absorption spectrophotometry, validates this
supposition.
The virgin resin used in this work and
incorporated into the recycled material contained no
additives, apart from those used for its pre-stabilization,
which can also justify its superior Ey value. The most
Figure 5 shows the results of yield stress
obtained to the blends ofPP, HIPS and HDPE contain 0,
25, 50, 75 and 100% of recycled material. It seems that
the recycled process affect more the H I P S and HDPE
blends. On the other hand, the PP seems do not have
some alteration in this property.

Figure 6 shows the results of young modulus

obtained to the blends of PP, HIPS and HDPE contain 0,
25, 50, 75 and 100% ofrecycled material.

40,

L.3

m 2.0

c! 1.5
LI)

2
3

-0

zl 1.0

5
m

0.5
0.0

25

50

75

loo

Virgin Resin Concentration (%wt)

Figure 6- Measurements of young modulus to blends of

HIPS, PP and HDPE containing 0, 25, 50, 75 and
100% of recycled material.
It can be observed in Figure 6 that there is an
increase in the young modulus with incorporation of
recycled resin to the blend of HIPS. On the other hand,
there is not observed a variation in this property with
the incorporation of recycled resin to the PP and HDPE.
Figure 7 shows the impact strength to the
blends of PP, HIPS and HDPE contain 0, 25, 50, 75
and 100% of recycled material.

HDPE
PP

35
30

to

25

0
25
75
400
Virgin Resin Concentration (/ow&)

20
15

Figure 7- Measurements of impact strength to blends

of HIPS, PP and HDPE containing 0, 25, 50, 75 and
100% of recycled material.

10
W

F 5
0

50

i5

1bo

Virgin Resin Concentration (%M)

Figure 5- Measurements of yield stress to blends of

HIPS, PP and HDPE containing 0, 25, 50, 75 and

Analyzing the Figure 7 a different

behavior can be observed to the different blends. To
the HDPE there is an increase in the impact strength
with incorporation of recycied material. To HIPS
blends, the behavior is opposite; with incorporation of

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recycled material it is observed a decrease in this

property.

CONCLUSIONS
Results indicated that volumetric resistivity
values remained virtually unchanged as compared to
those for virgin resin in formulations with as much as
75% of recycled material. The changes in volumetric
resistivity values may be attributed to the presence of
conductive impurities. For the dielectric strength values,
a slight decrease was observed (5 12%) with the
incorporation of 50% of recycled resin. The marked
and E , observed for the
difference between E,
formulations containing 75% and 100% of recycled
material, point to inferior dectrical performance when
compared to those for other formulations. With the
incorporation of recycled resin in the virgin resin there
is not a highly expressive alteration in the mechanical
properties. Finally, it may be concluded that the resin
recovered kom post-consumer HDPE, HLFS and PP
packaging in formulations containing as much as 75%
of recycled resin may be considered when developing
electric insulation products to be used in low voltage
systems.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors wish to thanks CNpq,
DEMa-UFSCar, and FAPESP for the financia1 support.
REFERENCES
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Polymer Science, vol. 76, 266-275, 2000.

T.
Polymer degradation,
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3- ALLEN, N.S., EDGE, M. Fundamentals of
polymer degradation and stabilization. New
York : Elsevier Applied Science, 1992.
4- ZWEIFEL, H. Stabilization of polymeric
materials. New York : Springer, 1997.

2- KELEN,

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