Polymer chemistry recycled plastic

The first step in recycling plastics is to sort the plastics by their resin type, or resin identification code. The resin identification code is a number assigned to a plastic product (or container) according to the type of polymers it is made of. While it was once common to directly use this code to identify the types of polymer(s) present, there are now other methods, such as near-infrared spectroscopy or density sorting approaches, that are used to sort mass quantities of plastic samples for recycling. (See Polymer Chemistry for more information on resin identification codes.)... 

The basic course content is typical for an introductory environmental chemistry course (Table 2.2). The syllabus is flexible and is modified to support the research projects. For example, when projects related to recycling are pursued, then topics related to polymers, plastics and paper chemistry are covered in detail. However, when biodiesel was the focus of a laboratory-based project (described below), then less time was spent on recycling-related topics and various organic chemistry topics were added. The syllabus is intentionally flexible and... 

Chapter 14 expands the covei e of organic chemistry beyond that introduced in Chapter 12 to include the major fimctional groups. Ethylene glycol poisoning is used to illustrate some functional group chemistry of alcohols and carboxylic acids and reinforces the importance of the roles of acid-base chemistry and ionic bonding in this phenomenon. There is a new discussion of waterlock polymers and their applications, used as an example of the importance of polymers, are treated in some detail in this chapter. There is an expanded discussion of plastics recycling. 

PET bottles and HOPE milk jugs are probably the plastics recycled the most. But the major problem isn t the chemistry involved in the recycling process The major problems are encouraging individuals, families, and businesses to recycle and developing an easy means to collect and sort the plastics for recycling. These polymers are too valuable a resource to simply be buried in some landfill. 

Polymer education at the K-12 level http //www.uwsp.edU//chemistry/ipec.htm Recycling of plastics http //www.plasticbag.com/environmental/pop.html Teacher s workshops in materials and polymers http //matsel.mse.uiuc.edu/ tw Teaching of plastics and science http //www.teachingplastics.org The American Chemical Society Polymer Education Committee site http-J/www. polyed.org... 

In fact, RIM was the first plastic to be approved for bumper fascia in North America to meet the low-temperature crashworthiness demanded by some OEMs. Unfortunately, due to process complexity, RIM could not be fabricated at a high enough rate to meet the demands of large car platforms. Faster cycle time for part production is delimited by the speed of curing chemistry and the ability of the resin to flow into molds. Furthermore, the automotive industry wanted to move away from the use of thermoset polymer systems that cannot be remelted. This attribute of thermosets was labeled by the industry as non-recyclable, and the industry made room for other thermoplastics such as TPO that can be remelted. Reaction-injection-molded parts are made from urethane epoxies, polyesters, and polyamides. A study of cost versus performance reported that RIM gives the best cost-performance characteristic for composite materials and is competitive with steel. ... 

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