THE DISSOLUTION REPRECIPITATION TECHNIQUE APPLIED ON HIGH-DENSITY POLYETHYLENE .1. MODEL RECYCLING EXPERIMENTS

A model dissolution/reprecipitation process is studied for the recycling of high-density polyethylene (HDPE). The process proposed basically comprises dissolution of the plastic in an appropriate solvent, reprecipitation by using a nonsolvent, thorough washing of the material obtained, and drying. The solvent mixtures involved are separated by distillation for further reuse. Toluene/acetone was tried as a potential solvent/nonsolvent pair and proved to be very satisfactory, similarly to the case of recycling low-density polyethylene. Further investigation was focused on the effect of sample history through successive recycling cycles. The recycled grades were evaluated in terms of the following properties: melt flow index (MFI), molecular weight, crystallinity, mechanical performance in tensile mode, and grain size analysis. In all cases the recycled polymer exhibited excellent retention of its properties. (C) 1995 John Wiley and Sons, Inc.