pps proceeding - Abstract Preview
pps proceeding
Symposium: S11 - Polymerization and synthesis
Poster Presentation
 
 

Solvent-based Recycling Process for Polypropylene Products

Kizildag N. (1)*, Unal Serkan (1), Tufani A. (1), Sevinis B. (1), Guclu S. (1), Dizman B. (1), Menceloglu Y. (1)

(1) Sabanci University - Istanbul - Turkey

Polypropylene (PP) is used in a wide variety of products, for example automobile interiors, packaging, electronics, construction materials, carpets and other home furnishings. Very short life and very low recycling rates of PP products make it a substantial contributor to the contamination of the environment. Recycling technologies used in the recycling of PP are mostly mechanical and/or thermal which generally result in a lower quality product containing contaminants such as pigments and degraded components. Thus, there is a great need for an innovative recycling process which results in high grade recycled PP material. The aim of this study is to develop a solvent-based recycling process for PP products using polypropylene containing waste carpet as the starting material. A piece of waste carpet, consisting of 77% PP, 19% jute and 4% polyester, was chopped into the proprietary solvent, which was specifically designed for highly tuned solubility of PP. The mixture was stirred magnetically at 140C under reflux until the PP fibers were dissolved. After successive filtration steps performed to remove the undissolved non-PP components and the pigments, the filtered solution was poured into isopropanol for precipitation. While precipitated PP was separated by filtration from the solvent/isopropanol mixture and dried in an oven; the proprietary solvent was recovered by rotary evaporator. The solvent-based recycling process was proved to be beneficial in the recycling of PP. It could be possible to obtain virgin white PP, which was identical to raw PP according to FTIR and DSC analysis. The new recycling process is expected to reduce the reliance of PP production on fossil resources and to avoid the end-of-life PP products pollute the environment. Acknowledgment: This work has been performed under the framework of the ISOPREP project (Grant number 820787) funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.