Recycling Oxidized Model Polyethylene Powder as a Degradation Enhancing Filler for Polyethylene/Polycaprolactone Blends

Polyethylene (PE) powder with different degrees of oxidation was prepared to model end-of life polyethylene that has been oxidized during processing and/or service-life. The non-oxidized and precoddized PE powders were blended with PCL to evaluate the possibility to recycle PE powder in PCL blends. Good elongation at break was reached for all 25/75 (w/w) PE/PCL films and the elongation at break correlated well with the carbonyl index of the original PE powder, indicating that the oxidation of PE increased the interfacial adhesion with PCL and improved the blend properties. The preoxidized PE powder in combination with surfactant and pro-oxidant greatly accelerated the degradation rate of PCL as measured by molecular weight decrease during low temperature thermo-oxidative aging. This coincided with the fast initial increase in PE carbonyl index. The degradation accelerating effect was larger when preoxidized PE was blended with PCL as compared to when nonoxidized PE was added. However, the degree of preoxidation had minor impact on PCL degradation rate. Without PE powder the degradation rate of PCL was not enhanced by the addition of pro-oxidant and surfactant alone.