Recycling of plastic car components: The case of a multilayer item based on polypropylene

The recycling of a particular internal car component with a multilayer stru cture such as the dashboard has been extensively investigated. On this item , based on polyolefins, a thermal, spectroscopic, mechanical and morphologi cal analysis has been performed. The recycled material showed a strong wors ening in the mechanical and impact properties due to the occurrence of ther mo-oxidative and thermo-mechanical degradation phenomena taking place durin g processing. A limited improvement in the mechanical behaviour has been ob tained by adding, during the recycling, a suitable antioxidant and stabilis er additive. A more significant enhancement has been achieved in terms of d eformation at break, impact toughness and overall morphology when an ethyle ne-propylene copolymer and virgin polypropylene were added to the formulati on during the recycling process. By this procedure materials with propertie s suitable to be reused for the same or for similar applications within the car have been obtained. (C) 2000 Kluwer Academic Publishers.