Abstract
The purpose of this work was to investigate the loss of performance undergone by a chemically foamed polymer in a close-loop recycling process. The case of low density polyethylene (LDPE) was studied by foaming up to 10 times the same polymer on an extrusion line using constant processing conditions. After each cycle, the material was characterized in terms of morphological, mechanical, rheological, and thermal properties. In order to detect the effect of foaming itself, the same procedure was applied to unfoamed LDPE. All the results indicate that foamed polymers have higher degradation levels than unfoamed ones when processed under similar conditions.
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