Recycling baroplastic materials

GPC measurements of the starting and the recycled baroplastic materials (PI to P8) show no significant change inM and polydispersity indicating that the processing can be carried out without any degradation. The representative GPC traces can be seen in Figure 9 fortri-block copolymer (P2). 

As can be seen in Figure 6, DSC heat flow of the 5 times recycled material show both components Tfs and a mixed-phase Tg around 47 °C similar to the initial processed material. This observation also indicates that the recycled baroplastic materials maintain a mixed morphology (the mixture of ordered and disordered structure). 

Herein, in addition to the existing baroplastics, we have shown that baroplastic tri- and star-block copolymers can be recycled multiple times. For example, recycling of P6 (Figure 8) was achieved by chopping and remolding at 400 kg cm for 30 min which was repeated five times. The fact that the resulting material is still remoldable is an indication of the recyclability of the material. 

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