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Polymers
Special Issues
Recycling of Plastic and Rubber Wastes, 2nd Edition
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Recycling of Plastic and Rubber Wastes, 2nd Edition

A special issue of Polymers (ISSN 2073-4360). This special issue belongs to the section "Circular and Green Polymer Science".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2024 | Viewed by 1787

Special Issue Editor

Dr. Florian Part

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute of Waste Management and Circularity, Department of Water-Atmosphere-Environment, BOKU University, Muthgasse 107, 1190 Vienna, Austria
Interests: advances materials; nanomaterials; polymer (nano-)composites; chemical risk assessment; waste management; recycling technologies; life cycle assessment
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Plastics, or synthetic polymers, are omnipresent in our daily lives and characterised by their advantageous material properties, such as the light weight, plasticity, and durability of thermoplastics and thermosets. In addition, elastomers—or rubber with longer, cross-linked polymer chains—have enabled reversible elasticity, opening up a wide array of applications from household products to the medical, energy, agriculture, construction, automotive, and avionic sectors. No one can imagine life without plastic currently, but today, we—and especially future generations—are confronted with the reality that improper waste collection and insufficient recycling have led to massive environmental pollution. For this reason, many countries as well as the United Nations have agreed to implement a range of measures, from sustainable production and consumption to waste prevention, collection, and recycling. Regarding CO2 reduction and the Paris Climate targets, it is noted that this Special Issues does not address topics around waste-to-energy transition or waste incineration. Since innovative solutions should cover the entire value chain of plastics and the efforts of all scientific disciplines are required, this Special Issue focuses on the following topics:

  • Recycling-oriented collection systems, especially for polymer composites and post-consumer wastes;
  • Novel technologies for separation by polymer type to improve the quality of recyclates;
  • Approaches towards sustainable value chains and process optimisation to advance feedstocks, molecules, materials/compounds/composites, and end-products;
  • Innovations in mechanical recycling and remelting processes;
  • Innovations in chemical recycling;
  • Quality assessments of recycling products and the identification of emerging markets;
  • The identification and risk assessment of substances of (very high) concern and emerging pollutants in recyclates and other polymeric recycling products (“trade-offs” by cross-contaminates);
  • Material flow, socio-economic, and life or value cycle analysis of possible recycling routes in the circular economy.

Dr. Florian Part
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Polymers is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • plastic recycling
  • recycling of polymer composites
  • recycling of packaging materials
  • polymer degradation
  • plastics from electronic equipment and WEE
  • car tire recycling
  • compounding
  • re-granulation
  • thermochemical recycling
  • end-of-waste criteria of recycled plastic
  • life cycle and socioeconomic assessment of recycling routes

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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20 pages, 6964 KiB  
Article
Adding Rare Earth Oxide Markers to Polyoxymethylene to Improve Plastic Recycling through Tracer-Based Sorting
by Aleksander Jandric, Christoph Olscher, Christian Zafiu, Robert Lielacher, Christoph Lechner, Andrea Lassenberger and Florian Part
Polymers 2024, 16(18), 2591; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym16182591 - 13 Sep 2024
Viewed by 740
Abstract
Engineering plastics, such as polyoxymethylene (POM), are high-performance thermoplastics designed to withstand high temperature or mechanical stress and are used in electronic equipment, the automotive industry, construction, or specific household utensils. POM is immiscible with other plastics but due to a low volume [...] Read more.
Engineering plastics, such as polyoxymethylene (POM), are high-performance thermoplastics designed to withstand high temperature or mechanical stress and are used in electronic equipment, the automotive industry, construction, or specific household utensils. POM is immiscible with other plastics but due to a low volume of production, no methods were developed to separate it from the residual plastic waste stream. Therefore, POM recycling is minimal despite its high market value. This paper provides a proof of concept for tracer-based sorting (TBS) as a potential solution for increasing the separation efficiency of low-volume, high-quality polymers. For this purpose, yttrium oxide (Y2O3) and cerium (IV) oxide (CeO2) have been embedded into the POM matrix. Mechanical tests of samples at varying concentrations (0.1 to 1000 ppm) of both tracers were conducted, followed by an analysis of detectability and dispersibility using a portable X-ray fluorescence spectrometer (p-XRF), subsequently optimizing detection time and tracer concentration. Finally, an experimental scenario was developed to test the fate and potential recovery of the tracer material after the thermal treatment of plastics. A low detectable concentration, short measurement time, low influence on mechanical parameters of the compound, and low loss ratio after simulated recycling prove Y2O3 to be a suitable tracer for the industrial implementation of TBS. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recycling of Plastic and Rubber Wastes, 2nd Edition)
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13 pages, 4701 KiB  
Article
Variations in the Thermomechanical and Structural Properties during the Cooling of Shape-Memory R-PETG
by Ștefan-Dumitru Sava, Bogdan Pricop, Radu-Ioachim Comăneci, Nicanor Cimpoeșu, Mihai Popa, Nicoleta-Monica Lohan and Leandru-Gheorghe Bujoreanu
Polymers 2024, 16(14), 1965; https://doi.org/10.3390/polym16141965 - 9 Jul 2024
Viewed by 789
Abstract
One of the useful features of 3D-printed specimens of recycled polyethylene terephthalate glycol (R-PETG) is the ability to repetitively develop free recovery as well as the work-generating, shape-memory effect. This behavior is enabled by the R-PETG’s capacity to stiffen during cooling, thus allowing [...] Read more.
One of the useful features of 3D-printed specimens of recycled polyethylene terephthalate glycol (R-PETG) is the ability to repetitively develop free recovery as well as the work-generating, shape-memory effect. This behavior is enabled by the R-PETG’s capacity to stiffen during cooling, thus allowing for a new temporary shape to be induced. Aiming to devise an explanation for the polymer’s stiffening, in this study, the variation in some of the R-PETG’s parameters during cooling are emphasized and discussed. The evolution of an R-PETG filament’s shape was monitored during room-temperature-bending heating–cooling cycles. Straight-shape recovery and the complete loss of stiffness were observed at the start and the end of heating, respectively, followed by the forced straightening of the filament, performed by the operator, around 40 °C, during cooling. The tests performed by dynamic mechanical analysis disclosed the rise of the storage modulus (E’) after 100 °C heating followed by either liquid-nitrogen- or air-cooling to room temperature, in such a way that E’ was always larger after cooling than initially. Static tests emphasized a peculiar stress variation during a heating–cooling cycle applied in air, within the heating chamber of the tensile testing machine. Tensile-failure tests were performed at −10 °C at a rate of 100 mm/min, with specimens printed at various deposition directions between 10 and 40° to the transversal direction. The specimens printed at 40°, which had the largest ultimate strains, were broken with tensile rates between 100 and 500 mm/min. Deformation rate increase favored the shift from crazing to delamination failure modes. The correlation between the structural changes, the sharp E’ increase on heating, and the stiffening induced by cooling represents a novel approach that enables the use of 3D-printed R-PETG for the fabrication of the active parts of low-priced lightweight resettable actuators. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recycling of Plastic and Rubber Wastes, 2nd Edition)
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