Interactions in Binary and Ternary Polyolefin Blends

Abstract A way for the recovery of plastic waste is the reprocessing. As they cannot be easily separated, the reprocessing of polyolefins appears as a special case of the processing of polymer blends. In order to understand the basic phenomena involved in these systems, binary and ternary blends are prepared from a high density polyethylene, a linear low density polyethylene, and a random ethylene-propylene copolymer. In a first step, the interactions between the different polyolefins are characterized in laboratory experiments (differential scanning calorimetry, optical microscopy, small-angle light scattering, wide-angle X-ray diffraction, mechanical properties). Then, it is shown that the original poor mechanical properties of the blends can be largely improved by optimizing the processing conditions. Finally, an extrapolation of these results to real plastic waste is presented.