Structure and mechanical property of recycled PET fiber/PP composite

Abstract

For environmental protection and sustainable development, the recycling and reusing of wasted non-woven fabrics has become a hot research topic in the field of materials. In this thesis, the recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET) fiber was made from wasted non-woven fabrics, which was used to prepare PET/polypropylene (PP) composites with different fiber content by a hot pressing molding technique. A combination of SEM, DSC, XRD and tensile test was performed to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the structure and mechanical property of the PET/PP composites. The main results are as follows: the recycled PET fiber can be well dispersed in PP matrix at low content, and the interfacial adhesion between them is strong. Crystallinzation of PP molecular chain can be promoted with the addition of PET fiber owing to heterogeneous nucleation effect. Moreover, PET fiber is of advantage to increase the degree of crystallinity and grain refinement of PP, which can improve the mechanical property of the PET/PP composites. When the PET fiber content is only 0.1%, the tensile strength of the PET/PP composites is increased by 25.99% and the toughness thereof increased by 61.96%.