• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.175-180
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• 2016

Waste bumpers from out-of-service vehicles are recycled in the manufacturing process of plastic parts by incorporating pristine materials after removing the coated paint on a bumper. This study examined the chemical properties and mechanical properties of a mixture of recycled bumper and pristine materials as a function of the mixing ratio. When the pristine materials and the recycled bumper pieces were mixed, the stiffness (tensile strength and the flexural modulus) was provided by their composition averages. On the other hand, the toughness (Izod impact strength and the elongation-at-break) was lower than their composition averages (i.e., negative deviation). FTIR analysis showed that these results were due to the absence of the compatibility between the pristine materials and recycled bumper pieces. When the recycled bumper pieces were loaded at more than 30 wt. %, the toughness decreased drastically. A previous study showed that a paint removal efficiency up to 80 wt.% was easily attainable. The other 20 wt.% of paint on the bumper is very difficult to remove. Therefore, this study examined the mechanical properties of a mixture of recycled bumper pieces containing the unremoved paint and recycled bumper pieces without paint. When the recycled bumper pieces containing the unremoved paint were incorporated in only small quantities, the mechanical properties were decreased to a great extent. These results show that the paint removal efficiency is very important in the recycled bumper industry.

• Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
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• v.15 no.5
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• pp.3298-3303
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• 2014

In order to recycle the waste bumper, techniques removing coated paint on a bumper is crucial. Chemical methods are known to be much more effective in removing the paint compared to physical methods. However, the chemical methods generally use toxic solvents and consequently cause environmental pollution. In this study, we tested a new method which combines the chemical and physical method to reduce the amount of solvent and increase the paint removal efficiency. We found that mechanical stirring increases the paint removal efficiency in soaking stage of solvent. When solid particles as a stress transfer media are incorporated into the solvent and high mechanical stirring is applied, the paint removal efficiency is very high. It was proved that the combined method can accomplish high level of the paint removal efficiency maintaining low amount of solvent consumed.

• Clean Technology
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.239-247
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• 2024

The removal of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from spent polypropylene (PP) sourced from the bumpers and interiors of used cars was carried out by using high-temperature supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO₂) extraction. The recycled polymers from the bumpers and interiors contained other additives beside PP such as polyethylene (PE), talc, and carbon black, which modified the properties of PP. The crystallinity of the recycled bumper and interior PP was significantly lower than that of the virgin PP pellet. The decomposition temperatures of the recycled bumper and interior PP was slightly higher than that of the virgin PP pellet, while the melting and crystallization points were slightly lower. The effect of process conditions on VOC removal was studied by varying the time (2 ~ 720 min), pressure (6.4 ~ 14 MPa), and temperature (298 ~ 473 K). Since VOC removal at 2 min produced satisfying results, times below 2 min (10 ~ 120 s) were also studied. The main goal of scCO₂ extraction was to reduce the xylene content, as the xylene content of the recycled bumpers was higher than the allowable limit. A temperature above 373 K was needed to remove the xylene from the waste PP samples. The optimum condition for VOC removal from bumper waste was determined to be 433 K, 8 MPa, and 60 s. The car interior waste had VOC content within the allowable limit, so no further treatment was needed.