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In order to easily separate pollutant-absorbing polymer beads from contaminated soil or water, novel polymer beads containing magnetic particles were developed. The polymer beads containing 4.67% (w/w) magnetic particles exhibited an almost identical partitioning coefficient for phenol compared to that of the pure polymer. A 1.5 L phenol solution of 2000 mg/L added to a bioreactor was reduced to 481 mg/L phenol within 3 h by adding 100 g of these magnetic beads, and the phenol was completely degraded by microorganisms in 16 h. The magnetized beads were then readily removed from the bioreactor by a magnet with 10,000 G, and subsequently detached for re-use. 500 g of soil contaminated with 4 mg-phenol/g-soil was also contacted with 100 g beads, and greater than 97% removal of phenol from the soil was achieved within 1 day. The phenol-absorbing beads were easily separated from the soil by the magnet and transferred into a fermentor. The phenol was released from the beads and was degraded by the microorganism in 10 h. Modifying polymers to possess magnetic properties has greatly improved the ease of handling of these sequestering materials when decontaminating soil and water sources, in conjunction with contaminant release in partitioning bioreactors.

Microcellular polypropylene/waste ground rubber tire powder blend processing was performed on an injection-molding machine with a chemical foaming agent. The molded samples produced based on the design of experiments (DOE) matrices were subjected to tensile testing and scanning electron microscope (SEM) analyses. Molding conditions and waste ground rubber tire (WGRT) powder have been found to have profound effects on the cell structures and mechanical properties of polypropylene (PP) and waste ground rubber tire powder composite samples. The result shows that microcellular PP/WGRT blend samples exhibit smaller cell size and higher cell density compare with polypropylene resin. Among the molding parameters studied, chemical foaming agent weight percentage has the most significant effect on cell size, cell density, and tensile strength. The results also suggest that tensile strength of microcellular PP/WGRT composites is sensitive to weight reduction, and skin thickness.

Microcellular polypropylene (PP)/WGRT blends, a new outlet for the recycling of waste tire rubber, were prepared in an injection-molding process by using a chemical blowing agent. The effects of WGRT content and chemical blowing agent content on the density, cell morphology, and physicomechanical properties of the foamed PP/WGRT blends were investigated. The foam morphologies were characterized in terms of void fraction, average cell size, and cell density. The results indicated that both the WGRT and the blowing agent content had huge effects on the cell morphology and tensile properties of the PP/WGRT foams. J. VINYL ADDIT. TECHNOL., 15:275–280, 2009. a 2009 Society of Plastics Engineers

This paper presents an experimental study of the foaming behavior of polypropylene (PP)/(waste ground rubber tire powder) (WGRT) blends when using a chemical blowing agent in an extrusion foaming process. The effects of formulations (i.e., WGRT content, blowing agent content, compatibilizer) and the processing parameters (i.e., die temperature, screw speed) on the void fraction, average cell size, cell density, and cell morphology of the PP/WGRT foams were investigated. The blowing agent loading affected the cell structure of the foams and the average cell size, and the void fraction increased with increasing blowing agent loading. Both increasing the screw speed and decreasing the die temperature could establish a high pressure drop in the extruder die, and these were beneficial to the foaming extrusion. J. VINYL ADDIT. TECHNOL., 15:266–274, 2009. a 2009 Society of Plastics Engineers

The usage of waste tire powder as dispersed phase in polypropylene matrix offers an interesting opportunity for recycling of the waste tire. In order to obtain ‘value added products’ from polypropylene (PP)/waste ground rubber tire powder (WGRT) composites, in this study, the processing of foamedPP/WGRT composites was investigated using a single-screw foam extrusion setup and chemical blowing agent. The regression models were constructed to study the relationships between the foam structure (i.e., void fraction, average cell size, and cell density) of foamed PP/WGRT composites, the processing conditions (extruder’s die temperature and screw speed), and the formulation compositions (WGRT content and blowing agent concentration) by applying a four-factor central composite design (CCD) statistical approach. The response surface plots generated using the regression models allow the rapid selection of the proper process parameters to obtain PP/WGRT composite foams with the desired density and morphology.

The diversiform physical treatment processes of waste rubber powder were carried out using grinding process, ozone treatment, and ultrasonic treatment. The effects of these processes on hardness, specific gravity, crosslink, tensile strength, elongation, and dynamic mechanical properties were studied. Also, the morphology and the chain structure changing of waste rubber powder were studied by SEM and XPS, respectively. The ozone/ultrasonic treatment was found to be the most effective treatment to improve the mechanical properties of waste rubber powder revulcanizate. The effect of mechanism may be due to the sulfur crosslinkage network changed to a cyclic form. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2009

Novel thermoplastic composites made from two major industrial and consumer wastes, fly ash and waste tire powder, have been developed. The effect of increasing fly ash loadings on performance characteristics such as tensile strength, thermal, dynamic mechanical and magnetic properties has been investigated. The morphology of the blends shows that fly ash particles have more affinity and adhesion towards the rubbery phase when compared to the plastic phase. The fracture surface of the composites shows extensive debonding of fly ash particles. Thermal analysis of the composites shows a progressive increase in activation energy with increase in fly ash loadings. Additionally, morphological studies of the ash residue after 90% thermal degradation shows extensive changes occurring in both the polymer and filler phases. The processing ability of the thermoplastics has been carried out in a Monsanto processability testing machine as a function of shear rate and temperature. Shear thinning behavior, typical of particulate polymer systems, has been observed irrespective of the testing temperatures. Magnetic properties and percolation behavior of the composites have also been evaluated.

The surface of waste ground rubber tire (WGRT) powder has been modified with by allylamine via an ultraviolet (UV) treatment. The degree of grafting of the modified-WRGT are confirmed by the Fourier Transform Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy, energy dispersive X-ray analysis, thermogravimetric analysis, and surface energy measurements. And then they incorporated into the polypropylene (PP) matrix. The effects of UV radiation time, WGRT loading, and allylamine concentration on the mechanical properties of the composites are measured. Mechanical properties are influenced as a function of UV radiation time, WGRT loading, and allylamine concentrations. The chemical interactions between grafted WGRT and PP matrix are investigated by X-ray diffraction and FTIR. They show change of the crystallinity of the PP and the chemical reaction between WGRT and the PP. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 2009. © 2008 Society of Plastics Engineers

Waste tire powder subjected to allylamine modification in the presence of ultraviolet (UV) radiation has been used to prepare polypropylene based thermoplastic vulcanizates with maleic anhydride polypropylene (MA-PP) as compatibilizer. The effect of increasing the concentration of MA-PP on performance characteristics like tensile strength, elongation and rheological properties have been investigated. X-ray diffraction studies of the PP/waste tire powder blend indicate the disappearance of β crystalline peaks on addition of waste tire powder in the PP, whereas it is observed in the allylamine modified rubber powder loaded PP. Differential scanning calorimetry results further supported the above fact. The improvement in mechanical properties of the PP/allylamine modified rubber powder loaded thermoplastic vulcanizates has been explained in terms of βα transformation of PP crystals during straining of the samples and uniform dispersion of allylamine coated rubber powder in the PP matrix. The melt rheological properties of the thermoplastic vulcanizates loaded with modified rubber powder are higher than its counterpart due to the higher dispersion as a result of chemical interaction between the rubber powder surface with the MA-PP. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

With the increased adoption of thermoplastic vulcanizates (TPVs) in automotive weather seal systems, the foams of TPVs present an important milestone in providing key applications such as trunk and door seals. In this study, microcellular foams of TPV based on waste ground rubber tire powder (WGRT) were investigated. In order to investigate the relationship between processing conditions and structure of TPV foams, we first prepared the thermoplastic vulcanizates of PP-g-MA/WGRT, then the samples were saturated with carbon dioxide and the saturated specimens were expanded during the pressure-quench process. The results indicated that the microcellular structure was dependent on the processing conditions. Cell size increased with saturation temperature, whereas cell density and relative density decreased. Different nucleation processes were produced with saturation pressure.

In order to obtain ‘value added products’ from polypropylene (PP)/waste ground rubber tire powder (WGRT) composites, PP/WGRT microcellular foams were prepared via supercritical carbon dioxide. The effects of blend composition and processing condition on the cell size, cell density and relative density of PP/WGRT microcellular composites were studied. The results indicated that the microcellular structure was dependent on blend composition and processing condition. An increased content of waste ground rubber tire powder (WGRT) and maleic anhydride-grafted styrene-ethylene-butylene-styrene (SEBS-g-MA) reduced the cell size, and raised the cell density and relative density, whereas a higher saturation pressure increased the cell size, and reduced the cell density and relative density. With increasing saturation temperature, the cell size increased and the relative density decreased, whereas the cell density initially increased and then decreased.

Blends of Polypropylene (PP) and waste ground rubber tire powder are studied with respect to the effect of ethylene—propylene—diene monomer (EPDM) and polypropylene grafted maleic anhydride (PP-g-MA) compatibilizer content by using the Design of Experiments methodology, whereby the effect of the four polymers content on the final mechanical properties are predicted. Uniform design method is especially adopted for its advantages. Optimization is done using hybrid Artificial Neural Network-Genetic Algorithm technique. A rubber formulary with respect to the four ingredients are optimized having maximum tensile strength and then compared with a blend predicted to have maximum elongation at break. It is concluded that the blends show fairly good properties provided that it has a relatively higher concentration of PP-g-MA and EPDM content. SEM investigations also corroborates with the observed mechanical properties. A quantitative relationship is then shown between the material concentration and the mechanical properties as a set of contour plots, which are then tested and confirmed experimentally to conform to the optimum blend ratio.

In this article, dynamic reaction of waste ground rubber tire powder/PP blends with compatibilizers is extended to commercially available waste rubber Viz. Ground rubber tire and PP for the possibility of getting recycled material with good mechanical properties. In the first part of the article it was shown that the compatibility of model material/PP blends has greatly improved. In this article, extensive studies have been carried out to study the effect of compatibilizers, in-situ compatibilization of immiscible waste ground rubber tire (WGRT) powder/polyolefin blends of various concentrations was investigated by means of extrusion process using a co-rotating twin screw extruder. It was observed that addition of small amounts of compatibilizers like SEBS-g-MA to the blends of WGRT and PP-g-MA can result in better mechanical properties than the blends with isotactic PP. The blends of WGRT powder and PP-g-MA with compatibilizer have better adhesion than those of isotactic PP blends as revealed by the morphological studies using AFM and SEM. The betterment in properties can be attributed to the presence of functional group, maleic anhydride in PP-g-MA. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 2007

Waste ground rubber tire (WGRT) is a complex composite containing various elastomers, carbon black, zinc oxide, stearic acid, processing oils, and other curatives. Most of the waste ground rubber tire is composed of mainly natural rubber (NR) and styrene butadiene rubber (SBR) in varying proportions. Blending it with other thermoplastic materials is difficult due to the inherent thermodynamic incompatibility. But, the compatibility can be increased by making the reactive sites in WGRT with suitable chemicals under optimum condition of shearing inside a twin screw extruder and it is said to undergo a dynamic reaction inside the extruder. To understand the mechanism of dynamic reaction process of a rubber/polyolefin blend, the blending of a truck tire model material rubber with polyolefin was first tried before it was applied to waste WGRT material. It was observed that the blends of a truck tire model rubber material and PP thermoplastic are physical mixture of two incompatible polymers in which a continuous plastic phase is largely responsible for the tensile properties. The rubber particles are the dispersed phase. The large particle size and the poor adhesion of these rubber particles are believed to be liable for the poor tensile properties. In case of blends of truck tire model material with isotactic polypropylene the tensile properties are found to be lower than that of its PP-g-MA counterpart which can be attributed to the reaction of the MA with the carbon black particles. A schematic representation of the possible interactions has been proposed. The effect of addition of compatibilizers such as SEBS and SEBS-g-MA has also been studied. The tensile and TGA studies indicate that the polarity of SEBS and SEBS-g-MA induces an increase in the performance characteristics for both types of polyolefins but the intensity of this increase is higher in the PP-g-MA based blends. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 106: 3193–3208, 2007

The physical gelation of triblock copolymer poly(styrene-b-(ethylene-co-butylene)-b-styrene) (SEBS) in different hydrocarbon oils with different concentrations is studied in this article. The linear viscoelastic behavior, thermal transitions, swelling behavior, and gel properties on physical gelation are presented. The linear viscoelastic behavior is highly dependent on the copolymer concentration and type of oils. The degree of moduli responses of SEBS gels increase with higher gelation temperature, thereby indicating the longer lifetime of gel junctions. Small amounts of aromatic content in the hydrocarbon oil decreases the thermal stability of micelle formation of the gel and increases the compatibility of the solvent with copolymer, thereby resulting in low gelation temperature, lower moduli, as well as gel strength. With an increase in paraffinic content and molecular weight of hydrocarbon oil, the gelation temperature, moduli, and gel properties show improvement. Differential scanning calorimetric results show phase separation of soft segment and hard segment. The glass transition temperature (Tg) of soft ethylene—butylene (EB) midblock is not dependent on the triblock copolymer concentration nor on the type of oil, whereas the Tg of hard segment styrene endblock is highly dependent on triblock copolymer concentration and type of oil. The molecular weight and paraffinic hydrocarbon content of the oils are found to contribute to the stability of micelles and the incompatibility of hydrocarbon oil in SEBS triblock copolymer.

A co-rotating twin screw extruder was used for blending thermoplastic elastomeric blends of ground rubber tire (GRT) and maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene (PP-g-MA). The dynamic reaction occurring between the blends necessitates a study of the processing parameters of the extruder. The effects of the extruder screw configurations, screw speed, compatabilizer and blend ratios on the mechanical properties, and morphology was studied. Out of the four different screw configurations A, B, C, and D, screw D with reverse flow elements was found to be highly efficient with respect to mechanical properties, particularly at 100 rpm screw speed. SEM studies revealed that GRT and PP-g-MA are thermodynamically miscible under optimized screw configuration and processing condition of 100 rpm screw speed. SEM studies also show that the addition of compatibilizer increases the miscibility and, consequently, the mechanical properties. Finally, a composition involving GRT/PP-g-MA/SEBS-g-MA as 65/35/10 by weight was fou...

Nowadays, waste EPDM (ethylene propylene diene monomer) increasingly has been causing significant environmental problems with increasing numbers of vehicles. From the perspective of the environment and economics, recycling is the best method to treat waste materials. This study investigated waste EPDM/PP (polypropylene) blends with waste EPDM. Waste EPDM powders were treated ultrasonically, which physically modifies the rubber particles to confer good mechanical properties. Also investigated were the relevance of the mass percentage of the dispersed phase, the influence of the geometry and rotation speeds of the screw used in extrusion, and the melting temperature of PP materials on the morphology and mechanical properties of the blend. The purpose of this study was to develop a valuable thermoplastic elastomer from waste EPDM. This study concentrated on determining the optimum conditions for producing a blend by extrusion, including parameters of screw geometry, screw rotational speed, and operating temperature. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 90: 2503–2507, 2003

Nowadays, with the increase in the number of automobiles, waste EPDM (ethylene propylene diene monomer) is causing a significant environmental problem. From environmental and economical perspectives, recycling is one of the popular methods to solve environmental problems. This study, which involved waste EPDM/PP (polypropylene) blends with the ratio range of 70/30 and 75/25, set out to ascertain the relevance of the mass percentage of the dispersed phase, the influence of the screw geometry, the screw rpm, and the melting temperature of PP materials on the morphology and mechanical properties of the waste rubber blend. The purpose of this study is to develop a high-value thermoplastic elastomer from waste EPDM. This investigation concentrated on determining the optimum conditions for producing a blend by extrusion, relative to screw geometry, screw rational speed, and operating temperature. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 85: 2276–2282, 2002

Nowadays, waste tires are a significant problem with the increasing in the number of automobiles. Therefore, much research has been performed in this field. From environmental and economical perspectives, recycling is one of the popular methods for the treatment of waste tire. However, it is not easy to melt down and mold scrapped tires into new products because the tire rubber is a crosslinked polymer. Due to such difficulty, the recycled product is not economical. Therefore, the goal of this study is to develop high-value products from waste tires. In this paper, attention has been paid to an economic recycled technology using scrapped waste tires. This technology may be applied to manufacturing the end products such as a rubber block and a ballast mat for high-speed trains. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 78: 1573–1577, 2000

Despite progress in the development of biodegradable polyesters, little attention has been given to aliphatic/aromatic copolyesters. Therefore, a series of such copolyesters has been synthesized by polycondensation of succinic acid (SA), dimethyl terephthalate (DMT) and 1,4-butanediol (BD), and their material characteristics and biodegradability have been examined. The chemical composition of the aliphatic/aromatic copolyesters strongly influences the material characteristics and biodegradability. For the copolyesters with a DMT–BD mole fraction of less than 0.2, an optimum between physical properties and biodegradability seems attainable. © 1999 Society of Chemical Industry