DIGITAL IMAGE-ANALYSIS APPLIED TO PAINTED AUTOMOTIVE BUMPER MATERIALS

The recycling of pointed polypropylene automotive bumpers requires kno wledge about the paint system as retention of paint in the recycled ma terial influences the material properties. In this paper a technique o f digital image analysis is described to quantitatively estimate the v olume of paint present in polypropylene. For experimental study, two b otches of bumper bar grade material with a known amount of point was t oken and Digital image analysis was applied to determine the amount of paint dispersed in the polypropylene phase. The results were compared with those from a gravimetric method showing excellent correlation.