Identification and thermomechanical characterization of polymers recovered from mobile phone waste

Abstract

The plastic components from waste mobile phones were sorted and characterized using visual, spectroscopic and thermal methods. The sustainable strength of the recovered plastics was investigated by comparing their mechanical and thermal properties with commercially used reference materials. The results revealed that the recovered polymers have significant potential to be reused. However, some properties, such as impact strength and tensile modulus, are significantly low compared to virgin materials and need further improvement. The samples were also tested for brominated flame retardants (BFRs) using gas chromatography-mass spectrometry technique, and the results indicated the absence of BFR in recovered plastics; hence, these can be processed without any risk of BFR toxicity.

Towards Higher Quality of Recycled Plastics: Limitations from the Material’s Perspective

“…As can be seen in Figure 2, from 2018 onwards, an increasing trend in the number of publications was recorded. A deep analysis indicates that the focus was on topics such as circular economy [25,[56][57][58][59][60][61], as well as the recycling of contaminated plastics (e.g., from e-waste and agricultural packaging) [15,24,[62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72]. to the literature review is to target some, yet not all, of the published scientific articles and online reports on the main topics of plastics recycling, circular economy of plastics, and challenges to plastic waste recycling.…”

“…As can be seen in Figure 2, from 2018 onwards, an increasing trend in the number of publications was recorded. A deep analysis indicates that the focus was on topics such as circular economy [25,[56][57][58][59][60][61], as well as the recycling of contaminated plastics (e.g., from e-waste and agricultural packaging) [15,24,[62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72]. Analysing the topics "plastic recycling" and "circular economy" combined during the same lifespan (1950-2020) in the Web of Science Core Collection resulted in a total of 337 publications.…”