Recycling of plastic car components: the case of a multilayer item based on polypropylene

The recycling of a particular internal car component with a multilayer structure such as the dashboard has been extensively investigated. On this item, based on polyolefins, a thermal, spectroscopic, mechanical and morphological analysis has been performed. The recycled material showed a strong worsening in the mechanical and impact properties due to the occurrence of thermo-oxidative and thermo-mechanical degradation phenomena taking place during processing. A limited improvement in the mechanical behaviour has been obtained by adding, during the recycling, a suitable antioxidant and stabiliser additive. A more significant enhancement has been achieved in terms of deformation at break, impact toughness and overall morphology when an ethylene-propylene copolymer and virgin polypropylene were added to the formulation during the recycling process. By this procedure materials with properties suitable to be reused for the same or for similar applications within the car have been obtained.