Plastic Required to Produce High Performance Engineering Blends

Abstract

Plastic deposit is one of the biggest environmental issues at concern right now. Out of the total estimated 10 billion tons of waste in the world today, around 8 billion ton is plastic. Out of around 8 billion tons of plastic produced till date, more than 80% has been converted to waste. What's most alarming is the fact that out of total plastic manufactured, only 10% is recycled. The dumped plastic is not biodegradable, and it stays either on the land or in the water for years. The degradation time for plastics ranges from 60 years to 500+ years. Thus, they keep on piling up. Adding to the pollution, and creating a threat for land and aquatic life. Therefore, it is very important to recycle the plastics in order to reduce waste and protect our environment. For this purpose, we carried out an analysis to find out the major constituent of plastic waste in NUST. Once identified, the processing was done in order to make polymeric blends of PET. The blends were formed with both PP and HDPE. But the PET/PP blends were chosen for further processing since they exhibited better properties in terms of phase coherence and film making properties. The PET/PP blends were made in various compositions. 80/20, 70/30, and 75/25 were some of these compositions. In order to achieve thorough mixing and phase coherence, the compatibilizer, Maleic Anhydride (MAH) was added into each composition to a weight percent of 5%. The blends were made with and without the compatibilizer. After the formation of blends, films were made which were then used to carry out the testing and characterization.