Valorization of Recycled Tire Rubber for 3D Printing of ABS- and TPO-Based Composites

Abstract

Vulcanized and devulcanized ground tire rubber microparticles have been used as a minor phase in acrylonitrile butadiene styrene copolymer (ABS) and thermoplastic polyolefins (TPO) for the development of materials with desired functionalities by 3D printing. These polymers have been selected because they (i) present part of the plastic waste generated by the automotive industry and (ii) have totally different properties (ABS for its stiffness and robustness and TPO for its softness and ductility). The study aims to improve the circular economy of the automotive industry by proposing a promising route for recycling the generated tire rubber waste. In this respect, emergent technology for plastic processing such as 3D printing is used, as part of the additive manufacturing technologies for the prolongated end of life of recycled plastics originated from automotive waste such as ABS and TPO. The obtained results revealed that (i) the composites are suitable for successful filament production with desired composition and diameter required for successful 3D printing by fused deposition modeling, and that (ii) the optimization of the composition of the blends allows the production of materials with interesting mechanical performances. Indeed, some of the investigated ABS-recycled rubber tire blends exhibit high impact properties as TPO-based composites do, which in addition exhibits elongation at break higher than 500% and good compression properties, accompanied with good shape recovery ratio after compression.

Sustainable Manufacturing Process Applied to Produce Waste Polymer-Polymer Matrix Composites

“…In general, adding waste PVC or waste tire to polyester and hardener separately or together gave the samples' behavior in the tensile test behavior similar to the behavior of the plastic material, where the stress-strain curve gradually increased until the fracture occurred at the maximum value of the tensile strength. Compared to some previous studies, the ratios chosen for this study gave higher values for tensile strength than those found in those studies (Formela, 2022;Laoutid et al, 2021).…”

Investigation of Polyester Tire Cord Glycolysis Accompanied by Rubber Crumb Devulcanization

“…The same raw material [9], or only crumb rubber [10], could be used as bitumen modifiers or reinforcement materials for expansive soils [11]. The newest application for recycled tire cord components is 3D printing using polyethylene terephthalate [12] or crumb rubber [13,14].…”

Recent Advances in Development of Waste-Based Polymer Materials: A Review

“…Recently, published works [288,289] summarized the results of project VALPREMA-3D, which aimed at utilizing ground tire rubber as a starting component for the production of multifunctional materials dedicated for 3D printing. The examples of prototypes 3D printed by selective laser sintering technique of polyamide 12 modified with 20 wt.% of GTR are presented in Figure 6.…”