A Study of Mechanical and Rheological Behavior of Recycled Spray Painted Parts

摘要

At HP, we believe that environmentally sustainable development is not an option, but an imperative. HP intends to be an exemplary global citizen by using materials more efficiently, reducing the amount of materials used in our products, finding alternatives for hazardous materials, and developing materials that have less environmental impact and more value at end of life. Continuous and rapid technological advancement has dramatically improved the way we live. It also means that product discard is a growing pollution problem as more electronics join the league of waste stream in coming years. As the world's raw materials dwindle from consumers demand, there is an urgency to work towards waste minimization. In evaluating this waste stream, plastic materials stand out as the single largest material component for which recycling solutions have not been developed to enable reuse in equivalent new products. One of the greatest challenges for HP and other OEM's focused on the increased use of recycled plastics in new products is dealing with painted plastic parts. For many products, paint is used as a decorative finish to enhance the appearance and aesthetics of the product. The typically painted plastics are enclosure parts, representing a significant portion of the content of the product. Currently, most painted plastic parts processed by recyclers are considered to be non-recyclable, due to physical property degradation or cosmetic contamination when parts are reground without removing the paint. Typically, these parts are either incinerated for energy recovery, sent as a mixed fraction to smelters for metals recovery or landfilled. The focus of this paper is to explore the possibility of improving painted reground plastic performance through the use of compatible paint coatings that are miscible with the base resin when reground, resulting in minimal physical property degradation and enhancing the value of this feedstream for reuse in new products.