The Waste (England and Wales) Regulations encourage business to recycle their waste, as an alternative to landfill. This study has evaluated a number of processing techniques with respect to a difficult to recycle, technical textile, in order to develop recycling opportunities. Resorcinol formaldehyde latex (RFL) coated nylon 66 is a high performance fabric used as an interface to reinforce rubber products such as timing belts. The characteristics of the RFL coated woven fabric, assessed in comparison to equivalent uncoated fabrics, showed increased stiffness and decreased tear resistance. This was followed by the evaluation of three reduction processes:1) The Laroche Cadette shredder;2) The Hollander beater;3) The Intimus disintegrator. The fibre length, coating integrity and degradation properties were assessed for each of the reduction techniques. The longest fibres were produced by the Laroche Cadette shredder, this method proved most suitable for textile processing. The coating was unaffected and little degradation occurred. The Hollander beater produced mid-length fibres; however, fibres as short as 2mm could also be achieved. The material did not degrade, as water used within the process reduced heat build up, the coating remained adhered to the fibre. The Intimus Disintegrator produced the smallest fibre length and produced the greatest processing problem due to heat build up and degradation. Particles in addition to fibres were formed but were not crystalline in nature, and were difficult to process further. Processing using paper, textile, plastic and rubber technology were trialled with varying success. The recommended recycling route was found to be through reduction using the Hollander beater followed by incorporation of the waste as filler in rubber composites. RFL coated fibres gave additional strength to the rubber at high filler contents of 37.5% in comparison to uncoated waste filler also trialled. This was due to the surface chemistry of the RFL coated nylon fibre. The RFL coated nylon 66 filler also enabled the composites to exceed tear specifications required for hardwearing footwear. Fibres were effectively separated by length using forward flow and reverse flow hydrocyclones, separating 10mm and 3mm length fibres, which would prove useful for obtaining optimum particle size for reinforcement during the reduction process. Alternate processed trialled enabled the RFL fibres to be formed into a paper sheet using 50% cellulose pulp but textile processes proved unsuccessful. Moulded pieces formed though compression moulding were able to be produced from coated and uncoated fabric pieces, however many voids were present, limiting the usability.
Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:647359 |
Date | January 2013 |
Creators | Wroe, Sarah |
Contributors | Carr, Christopher |
Publisher | University of Manchester |
Source Sets | Ethos UK |
Detected Language | English |
Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
Source | https://www.research.manchester.ac.uk/portal/en/theses/the-recycling-of-resorcinol-formaldehyde-latex-coated-nylon-66(6b849427-03d1-4b81-b50a-df9d45f45e04).html |
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