Post-consumer PET recycling was investigated through five injection molding cycles. Samples of each step were submitted to tests to determinate degradation, crystallinity, melt flow index and mechanical properties. All the results show that the post-consumer bottle is perfectly recyclable in terms of processing (results very close to the virgin's). After five recycling steps, the number of carboxilic end chains increased to 300%, which indicates breaking of chains and the crystallinity increased from 11% (bottle) to 25% (final processing). The mechanical behavior of the recycled PET samples was strongly affected by the repetead molding steps, as shown by the increase of the carboxylic end chains an in the crystallinity.
Post-consumer PET; mechanical recycling; injection; titration; mechanical properties
