Blends from recycled rubber and thermoplastics

In view of the amount of rubber produced and consumed in Europe special eff orts are necessary to deal with the recycling of rubber waste. A route on a high level of quality is offered by blending rubber powder with thermoplas tics. However, good results are achieved only when creating bonds between t he (vulcanized) rubber particles and the thermoplastic matrix, investigatio ns on a blend of ground tyre rubber and a commercially available polypropyl ene are reported. The properties of the blend are near the ones of thermopl astic elastomers.