Recycling of a plastic car component having a multilayer structure: Morphological and mechanical analysis

The recycling of two types of dashboards having a multilayer structure pres ently available on the market and hence on the scrap cars has been extensiv ely investigated. In both the cases the recycled material showed a strong w orsening in the mechanical and impact properties. This effect was attribute d to the incompatibility of the different materials constituting the item a nd to the occurrence of degradation phenomena taking place during processin g. To overcome these limitations suitable polymeric additives were added du ring the recycling. By this procedure materials with improved mechanical pr operties able to be reused for the same or for similar applications within the car have been obtained. (C) 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers.