Toward an Environmental Sustainability of the Crosslinked Plastics via Ultrasonic Extrusion

这笔赠款将使我们能够探索一种新的以科学为基础的新技术，以实现一种新的连续工艺，从而能够对交联聚乙烯进行再加工，这种材料目前广泛用于塑料袋、冷热水管道、电线和电缆绝缘、储罐和许多注塑零件等产品。大多数交联材料不能再加工，因为赋予它们如此吸引人的性质的网络结构很难在不破坏聚合物的情况下解交。事实上，今天大多数这些废弃的产品只是因为它们有限的卡路里价值而被焚烧。这些新的超声辅助挤压工艺有可能生产出足够高质量和完整性的材料，使其能够再加工成新产品。研究小组将研究超声波挤出和制造以及解交联型聚乙烯材料的结构和性能，并将建立工艺模型并确定允许预测超声波加工的最佳条件和放大工艺的机理。如果成功，这项研究的结果将导致从废弃的交联型聚乙烯中生产用于许多相同应用的新材料和产品。其社会影响将是显著减少垃圾填埋场中的固体废物。对这些交联型聚乙烯的超声处理进行理论建模和计算机模拟，将有助于优化工艺和设计新型超声挤出机。这项技术还可以适用于除聚乙烯以外的更广泛类别的交联型聚合物。

This grant will enable the exploration of a new science-based technology for a novel continuous process enabling the reprocessing of crosslinked polyethylene, a material used extensively today in products such as plastic bags, hot and cold water pipes, wire and cable insulation, storage tanks and many injection molded parts. Most crosslinked materials cannot be reprocessed because the network molecular structure that gives them such attractive properties is very difficult to decrosslink without destroying the polymer. In fact, today most of these discarded products are simply burned for their limited caloric value. These novel ultrasonically aided extrusion processes have the potential to produce material of sufficient quality and integrity to enable it to be reprocessed into new products. The research team will study the ultrasonic extrusion and fabrication, as well as the structure and properties of the decrosslinked polyethylene materials and will establish the process models and identify the mechanisms allowing for the prediction of the optimal conditions of ultrasonic processing and scale up of the process.If successful, the results of this research will lead to the manufacture of new materials and products from waste crosslinked polyethylenes for use in many of the same applications. The societal impact would be a significant solid waste reduction in landfills. The theoretical modeling and computer simulations of the ultrasonic treatment of these crosslinked polyethylenes will contribute to the optimization of the process and design of new ultrasonic extruders. The technology could also be applicable to a broader class of crosslinked polymers beyond polyethylene.