The recycling market of thermoplastic polymers is currently in a sharp increase. Recycled materials are regarded as having inferior properties compared to the virgin material. Here we investigated the viscoelastic and thermal properties of the recycled low density polyethylene (LDPE). The samples were reprocessed up to ten times under extreme processing conditions (300 °C/80 rpm) in a single screw extruder in order to evaluate structural changes in their properties. Analyses were performed in an oscillatory rheometer with parallel plates and in a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). From the analysis of the oscillatory rheometry, relaxation and retardation spectra were obtained upon applying a non-linear adjustment using a computational program (NLREG), while the kinetics parameters were estimated from the results of the first DSC heating using the Avrami and Freeman-Carroll methods. From the rheological study we inferred that the samples reprocessed more than four times had an increase in complex viscosity, storage and loss moduli, also displaying wider relaxation and retardation phenomena. However, the DSC thermograms and the melt kinetic parameters showed that the LDPE studied maintained their thermal stability, regardless of the modification in their viscoelastic properties.
LDPE; recycling; reprocessing; viscoelasticity; kinetic
