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Deliverables
Using the high aspect ratio fibre obtained by the developed grinding system, recycled polyethylene and small amount of coupling agents, a new composite with good mechanical and rheological properties has been developed.
For blending all components a modular intermeshing co-rotating twin screw extruder is used, a special screw configuration was studied to reduce the fibre break and increase its dispersion in the melt polymer.
PLASTICOS YUSA and ERYPLAST will licence the compound manufacture.
Further developments would be carried out to adapt the new developed composite to be used in new applications manufacture (in addition to the pallets production).
The experience of work with fragile fibres with high amount of gases developed in the compounding process can be transferred to others compounds such as natural fibres, etc.
The main potential barrier for the new compound market is the variability of the GRP wastes. Using waste with low amount of fibre or contaminated could be result in a reduction of the properties of the composite.
The new and innovative grinding system has been developed for high abrasive materials. At present, the particle size reduction of this kind of materials involves large difficulties which we have solved along the project with this new grinding system. The main variables considered are the number of rotors and knives, their disposition and the rotational speed.
The main difference with other systems to grinding GRP waste is the size of the ground product (we need the maximum acceptable GRP recycled particle size), whereas, other system produces mainly dust. On the other hand, developed system produces high aspect ratio fibres together with small amount of dust.
In fact, an ideal composite consists of perfect bonded fiber-matrix interface an uniaxial alignment of continuous or very long fibers with respect to the applied tensile stress load.
No problems of degradation or high wear were found, this system would be employed (with further modifications) in the grinding of other abrasive and sensitive materials such as thermoplastic with large fibres, natural fibres with high amount of sand, etc..
LINOS LTD will market the developed system.
The potential customers of the system would be:
- GRP products manufacturers (waste producer);
- Waste management companies;
- Recycling companies;
- Compounders.
The incorporation of fibres to plastic improves mechanical resistance of the obtained composite. The glass fibre is one of the most used fibres for plastic reinforcement. Using glass fibre, high performance pallets (high load and high humidity resistance) can be obtained. Virgin glass fibre is expensive, consequently, to incorporate virgin glass fibre to the polymer to produce pallet is not economically viable. The use of ground GRP waste is an economic way to incorporate glass fibre to the polymer, and therefore to achieve an economic composite to manufacture high performance pallets. Furthermore, this contributes to solve the problem of waste management, which affects the GRP industry all-over Europe. The pallet developed in the project will be used in many sectors, mainly the metal-mechanic (pallets to transport goods from suppliers to assembly plants and final customers), chemical and other sectors where hygiene is extremely important. Besides this pallet will be used in groups of firms that must distribute pieces and products between different factories located in several European countries, controlling factories distribution cost at every moment. The main handicap of filled thermoplastic is its impact behaviour. In order to improve its impact strength we have worked in two ways, increasing the compatibility fibre-matrix and modifying pallet design to reduce the fragile points (corners, change of thickness, ribs etc.).
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