Evaluation of Recycled Polymers from Crt Monitor Frames of Different Years of Manufacture

Abstract

The recycling of polymeric waste has attracted considerable interest and many efforts have been made to facilitate large scale recycling. The rapid evolution of technology has generated large volumes of obsolete and unusable polymeric products. One example is the CRT (cathode ray tubes) monitor that are rapidly being replaced by monitor types such as LCD, LED and Plasma. The present materials and routes for recycling this waste is not well known, which encourages studies in this area. The main objective of this work is to identify the type of polymer present in the CRT monitor frames and evaluate if the quality of the recycled polymer is changed according to the monitor age (year of manufacture). Monitors of different years of manufacture but the same brand were collected and disassembled. Frames were separated into two groups (older and younger). After, the frames were comminuted and samples were injected, according to ASTM D638-08. The samples were characterized by infrared, density, mechanical, MEV and TGA tests. The results obtained by infrared (FTIR) showed that regardless of the year of manufacture the monitor frames are produced with the same polymeric material, which was identified as copolymer ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene). The results of mechanical and thermal tests showed that, in general, the recycled ABS polymers regardless of the year of manufacture showed no significant losses in their properties. However, it was found, by the TGA test, that there was a small variation in polymer composition.