Recycling Plastics from Waste Computer Equipment
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_________________________________________________________________________Swansea University E-Theses Recycling plastics from waste computer equipment. Brennan, Louise B How to cite: _________________________________________________________________________ Brennan, Louise B (2004) Recycling plastics from waste computer equipment.. thesis, Swansea University. http://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa43077 Use policy: _________________________________________________________________________ This item is brought to you by Swansea University. Any person downloading material is agreeing to abide by the terms of the repository licence: copies of full text items may be used or reproduced in any format or medium, without prior permission for personal research or study, educational or non-commercial purposes only. The copyright for any work remains with the original author unless otherwise specified. The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holder. Permission for multiple reproductions should be obtained from the original author. Authors are personally responsible for adhering to copyright and publisher restrictions when uploading content to the repository. Please link to the metadata record in the Swansea University repository, Cronfa (link given in the citation reference above.) http://www.swansea.ac.uk/library/researchsupport/ris-support/ School of Engineering Materials Research Centre RECYCLING PLASTICS FROM WASTE COMPUTER EQUIPMENT By Louise B. Brennan B.Eng M.Phil A dissertation submitted to the University of Wales for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2003 ProQuest Number: 10821469 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10821469 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 l b r a r y ^ swp^: For Kenneth Lucas My Grandad ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A great big thank you, thank you, thank you, to Cris and Dave, my two tutors, for their endless time and support throughout the project and also to the Swansea Environment Centre for their funding assistance. More great big thank you’s go to PMI (Wales) Ltd (who aren’t actually there anymore) for supplying the materials needed, and also to Phil, Idris and Paul from Merthyr College, and 4 The Environment (who aren’t there anymore either) for their technical expertise and assistance with the recycling process. A big cheers goes to Carwyn for the many hours spent extruding plastics with me instead of doing his own project (oops did I say that?) and everyone else who devoted their time and effort to helping throughout the project, including James, Tom and Stew who’s social time and assistance was invaluable. Also a special mention for Brian, the best ever lifesaving and swimming coach from the days when the University had its own pool!! SUMMARY In light of recent European legislation, an increase in recycling and recovery activities is required in the electrical and electronic sector in order to meet stipulated targets. For waste plastics this also includes the separation of plastics containing brominated flame retardants from those that do not. Studies into the FTIR (Fourier transform infrared) spectra of a collection of plastics from waste housings for computer equipment and comparisons with spectra from a selection of flame retardants, as well as testing different plastics identification systems have concluded that infrared spectroscopy cannot be used to detect flame retardants in plastics in the current state of technology. However flame retardants may be detected by using a combination of identification techniques such as IR (infrared) for plastic identification and pyrolytic spectroscopy for additive detection. The effects of recycling and blending on a commercial scale have been assessed on mechanical properties of the four most used plastics in computer equipment housings. Recycled ABS (acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene), HIPS (high impact polystyrene), modified PPO (polyphenylene oxide) and PC (polycarbonate) /ABS alloy were tested in the pure form and as various blends of ABS and HIPS, HIPS and modified PPO (mPPO), ABS with PC/ABS and a blend of all four plastics. Properties tested were tensile and impact properties, DMT A (dynamic mechanical thermal analysis), viscosity, molecular weight and surface and bulk microscopy. Generally changes to mechanical properties following recycling of pure ABS, HIPS, PPO and PC/ABS are quite small, although there are slight reductions in ductility for HIPS and mPPO. All plastics used in this study appear unaffected by the presence of a small proportion of another plastic, although at higher blend proportions impact strengths of ABS/PC/ABS deteriorate, properties of ABS/HIPS blends remain unaffected and larger proportions of HIPS/PPO are beneficial to all properties. These results indicate that a plastics identification system probably does not need to be exactly 100% accurate. CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 6 2.1 INTRODUCTION - PLASTICS IN THE ELECTRICAL 6 AND ELECTRONIC SECTOR 2.2 INTEGRATED WASTE MANAGEMENT 9 2.2.1 Prevention or Reduction at Source 9 2.2.2 Re-use 9 2.2.3 Mechanical Recycling 11 2.2.4 Chemical Recycling 13 2.2.5 Energy Recycl ing 15 2.2.6 Landfill 16 2.3 RECYCLING LEGISLATION 17 2.3.1 Directive On Packaging And Packaging Waste 17 2.3.2 End Of Life Vehicle Directive 19 2.3.3 Legislation For The Electrical And Electronic Sector 21 2.3.3.1 Directive on Waste from Electrical and 22 Electronic Equipment 2.3.3.2 Directive on the Restriction of the Use of Certain 23 Hazardous Substances in Electrical and Electronic Equipment 2.3.3.3 Directive for Electrical and Electronic Equipment 23 2.4 BROMINATED FLAME RETARDANTS 25 2.4.1 The Need For Flame Retardant Plastics 25 2.4.2 The Role of Bromine as a Flame Retardant 28 2.4.3 Issues with Recovery and Legislation on Brominated Flame 29 Retardants 2.5 SEPARATION AND IDENTIFICATION OF PLASTICS 32 FROM WASTE COMPUTER EQUIPMENT 2.5.1 Identification and Separation using Density 33 2.5.2 Identification and Separation using Electrostatic Properties 33 2.5.3 Selective Extraction of Plastics Waste 35 2.5.4 Rapid Identification of Plastics by Spectroscopic Methods 36 2.5.4.1 Group 1. Electromagnetic Methods of 36 Spectroscopy 2.5.4.2 Group 2. Pyrolytic Methods of Spectroscopy 40 2.5.5 Novel techniques for the rapid identification of plastics 40 2.6 PLASTICS MORPHOLOGY, DEGRADATION AND 43 RECYCLING 2.6.1 Polystyrene 44 2.6.2 Polyphenylene Oxide 46 2.6.3 Polycarbonate 47 2.6.4 Polymer blends and Alloys 49 2.6.4.1 Polymer Blends 51 2.6.4.2 Polymer Alloys 52 2.6.4.3 Polymer Composites - Toughened Plastics 54 2.6.5 Polymer Degradation 59 2.6.6 Recycling Plastics 61 2.7 TESTING OF PLASTICS 66 2.7.1 Tensile Properties 66 2.7.2 Impact Properties 69 2.7.3 Glass Transition Temperature 71 2.7.4 Viscosity 77 2.7.5 Molecular Weight 80 2.7.6 Plastics Microscopy 83 CHAPTER 3: IDENTIFICATION ANALYSIS - EXPERIMENTAL 86 PROCEDURE 3.1 MATERIALS FOR ANALYSIS 86 3.2 FURTHER CHARACTERISATION OF FTIR 88 SPECTROSCOPY AND X-RAY MICROANALYSIS OF PLASTICS 3.2.1 Characterisation of Peaks in FTIR Spectra of Plastics 88 3.2.2 Analysis of Flame Retardant Plastics Using FTIR Spectra 88 3.2.3 Analysis of Infrared Spectra of Commercially Available 89 Flame Retardants 3.3 COMPARISON OF RAPID PLASTICS IDENTIFICATION 93 TECHNIQUES 3.3.1 Repeating FTIR and X-ray Microanalysis From a Previous 93 Study 3.3.2 P/ID22 94 3.3.3 Polyana 95 3.3.4 SSS2 96 3.3.5 mIRo Spectrometer 97 CHAPTER 4: IDENTIFICATION ANALYSIS- EXPERIMENTAL 98 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 4.1 CHARACTERISATION OF PEAKS IN FTIR SPECTRA OF 98 PLASTICS 4.1.1 High Impact Polystyrene 98 4.1.2 Acrylonitrile - Butadiene - Styrene 100 4.1.3 Polyphenylene Oxide 102 4.1.4 Polycarbonate 103 4.1.5 Poly-Vinyl-Chloride 105 4.1.6 Polypropylene 107 4.1.7 Poly-Methyl-Methacrylate 108 4.1.8 Discussion 110 4.2 ANALYSIS OF FLAME RETARDANT PLASTICS USING 112 FTIR SPECTRA 4.2.1 Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene 112 4.2.2 High Impact Polystyrene 116 4.2.3 Polypheneylene Oxide 118 4.2.4 Polycarbonate / Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene 120 4.2.5 Discussion 123 4.3 ANALYSIS OF INFRARED SPECTRA OF COMMERCIAL 124 FLAME RETARDANTS 4.4 COMPARISON OF RAPID PLASTICS IDENTIFICATION 133 TECHNIQUES 4.4.1 FTIR and X-ray Microanalysis 133 4.4.2 P/ID22 138 4.4.3 Polyana 148 4.4.4 SSS2 150 4.4.5 mIRo mobile NIR system 151 4.4.6 Discussion 152 CHAPTER 5: RECYCLING PLASTICS - EXPERIMENTAL 154 PROCEDURE 5.1 MATERIALS FOR RECYCLING 154 5.2 RECYCLING PROCESS 156 5.2.1 Granulation and Blending 157 5.2.2 Extrusion and Re-granulation 157 5.2.3 Injection Moulding and Production of Samples 160 5.3 TESTING METHODS 162 5.3.1 Tensile Testing 162 5.3.1.1 Comparisons With Previous Data 163 5.3.2 Impact Testing 163 5.3.3 Dynamic Mechanical Thermal Analysis 164 5.3.4 Viscosity Measurements 165 5.3.5 Molecular Weight Measurements 167 5.3.6 Microscopy of Plastics 168 5.3.6.1 Bulk Microscopy of Recycled Plastics 168 5.3.6.2 Fracture Surface Imaging 168 CHAPTER 6: RECYCLING PLASTICS - EXPERIMENTAL