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Reprocessing of polypropylene material through injection moulding:

investigation of part quality, physical properties, processing properties and
mechanical properties

Conference Paper · July 2010

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PPS 26, Banff, Canada, 2010. Paper No. R01-472.

Reprocessing of polypropylene material through injection moulding:

investigation of part quality, physical properties, processing properties and
mechanical properties
S. A. Elsheikhi1*, L.Mulvaney-Johnson1, I.F. Campean1, T.Gough1 and P.D Coates1
1
IRC in Polymer Engineering, School of Engineering, Design and Technology, University of Bradford,
Bradford, United Kingdom- salahelsheikhi@gmail.com; l.johnson@Bradford.ac.uk;
F.Campean@bradford.ac.uk ; t.gough@Bradford.ac.uk and p.d.coates@Bradford.ac.uk

Abstract

We investigate the effect of the multiple injection moulding reprocessing stages of copolymer polypropylene
upon physical material properties such as mechanical stiffness and strength, melt viscosity, degradation
response, colour , molecular weight along with trends observed in process related measurements. This work
demonstrates that reprocessing of the material over seven successful repetitive stages is possible, where tensile
test specimens are manufactured under identical moulding conditions. The reprocessing of this material has
some effect upon molecular weight (-10%), shear viscosity (-11% at injection moulding shear rate range and
-33% at lower shear rate) and a clear effect on melt flow rate (+43%). Mechanical properties in term of Young’s
modulus, elongation at yield and flexural strength have a decrease of 15%, 25% and 11% respectively.
However, degradation analysis indicated that no premature degradation was noted at any stage. Little relative
increase of crystallinity, density and mass over seven stages were noted, 4%, 0.48% and 0.2% respectively from
virgin as a reference. Shrinkage calculations showed no considerable change over eight stages. Aesthetic
“quality” was assessed through colour measurements, and insignificant change were observed up to 3
reprocessing stages, however a notable change was observed beyond this point.

Key words: Injection moulding; polypropylene; regrind; reprocessing stages; viscosity; crystallinity and
mechanical properties.

1. Introduction Many researchers have conducted studies in the

It is clearly very important to produce and consume
plastic materials in an environmentally friendly
way. Thermoplastics constitute 85% of consumed
plastics in the world (Meran et al., 2008).
Therefore, the reprocessing of the thermoplastics
and the usability of the reprocessed materials are
gaining significance.
Rising raw material costs, linked to increasing oil
prices, increased consumer demand and increased
environmental awareness have led to the
development of plastic reprocessing programs
(La Mantia, 2002).
Polymer reprocessing can be performed with
many different technologies: this work concentrates
on injection moulding which is one of the most
versatile and important technology that widely used
to process and reprocess different type of polymers.
*
Corresponding author:
Tel: +44(0)1274 234529
Fax: +44(0)1274 235925
Email address: salahelsheikhi@gmail.com
area of polymer reprocessing through the injection
moulding technology. These studies concerned the
entirely recycled material in form of post consumer
materials/ material reclaimed from scrap yards
(Meran et al., 2008), entirely virgin material (Lewis
and Buser, 1997), and/or entirely mixed materials
(Xu et al., 2002).
For many manufacturers it is common practice to
introduce reground sprues, scrapped parts, and
runner systems into the injection moulding process.
This is advantageous for economic and
environmental reasons (La Mantia, 2002) and easy
to implement because it doesn’t require any
sorting, filtering or cleaning operations usually
required with material coming from landfill sites or
post consumer or rubbish yards. However, it is
important to ensure that part quality is not affected;
i.e. the properties of the reprocessed material
remain the same with virgin material. Therefore,
the process set up products in forms of sprues,
runners and unused parts were regrind and used in
this work.
Common industrial practice is to mix regrind
material with virgin material in ratios from 0-50%
or higher (Lewis and Buser, 1997) , depending on
the customer specifications. Lewis and Buster
(1997) have investigated the effect of processing
low density polyethylene “LDPE” on tensile
properties by adding 25% of regrind to the virgin
material with differential melt histories within the
same batch. Their result showed that LDPE with
25% of regrind can be added to the process without
affecting either the processability or the tensile
properties. This allows manufacturers to save
money producing parts with regrind without being
concerned with the effects it may have on the
tensile properties. Another study (Dontula et al.,
1994) reported in, based on high density
polyethylene “HDPE” with different regrind ratios
of 0%, 50% and 100% , found that the melt
temperatures didn’t change between virgin to 100%
regrind, and the Young’s modulus was found to be
the same between the three regrind ratios(virgin,
virgin +50% regrind and 100% regrind).
Reprocessing of recycled materials or reclaimed
from post-consumer waste material feedstock is
widely used in industry; however the product
quality is an important challenge against the
reprocessing operations. Therefore, the most
published studies of such recycling/reprocessing of
such material have dealt with the effect of
reprocessing on the physical and mechanical
properties of a range of polymers. The possibility
of recycling and using recycled refuse LDPE,
HDPE and polypropylene “PP” were investigated
(Meran et al., 2008), and it was found that the PP is
the material which can be most successfully
recycled based on the tensile strength of the
processed part.
Reprocessing of filled polypropylene is important
given that it has many applications especially for
injection moulding (Dave et al., 1997) , and hence
it is interest to study the behaviour under repetitive
reprocessing stages. Studies were reported on glass
fiber reinforced PP, paying particular attention to
two important aspects of injection process: firstly
the heat history to which the material is subjected,
and secondly, the number of times the material is
subjected to the shear of the screw (Guimond,
1997). The effect of four recycle histories on the
properties of 30% glass fiber reinforced
polypropylene was investigated (Guimond, 1997).
He found the tensile modulus, percentage of
elongation at yield and impact strength do decrease
with each reprocessing cycle, but not at an
alarming rate. It was found that the glass fibre do
seem to shred when exposed to excess shred and
grinding, but there was no sign of a major loss in
mechanical properties, and hence it can be
concluded that the glass fiber reinforced PP can be
effectively reprocessed and retain most of its
properties (Guimond, 1997). Charbonneau (1997)
examined the effect of eight reprocessing cycles
using 40% long glass fiber on the mechanical
properties. It was found that the tensile strength,
tensile modulus and impact strength have
a decrease in percentage of 30%, 45% and 25%
respectively from virgin to cycle number eight.
This implies that the material has been successful
in retaining many of its useful properties even after
exposing it to repeated heating and shearing cycles
(Charbonneau, 1997).
In spite of many researchers have conducted
studies in the area of polymer reprocessing through
injection moulding, however, some essential
information still needed especially those that
linked to the part quality, physical properties,
processing properties and mechanical properties.
Therefore, the lack of comprehensive investigation
of these properties (for some materials such like
co-polymer PP) over successive reprocessing
stages make the examination of these properties is
interested and useful, especially, if connected to the
industry. On other world, in industry, this could
help to know more accurate and varying
information for these properties, in order to satisfy
the customer who has a lot of requirements,
demands and specifications.
In this work a comprehensive study on the
current state of reprocessing polypropylene
material for many times using 100% regrind
material (without considered the reprocessing of
post consumer wastes, but well controlled
reprocessing of samples) under the same moulding
conditions, and a focus on the investigations of
varying properties and to find the possible links
between these properties.
The strategy of this study aims have some
advantages:

To reuse the process set up products in
form of sprues runners and none used
parts.

To reduce material consumption and
hence to improve the material
productivity.

To reduce material cost.
The key properties under investigations are:

Part quality (mass, in-plane shrinkage and
colour).

Physical properties (density, crystallinity,
thermal stability and molecular weight).

Processing properties (viscosity index,
melt flow index, and melt viscosity at high
and low shear rate).

Mechanical properties (Young’s modulus,
percentage of elongation at yield and
flexural strength).
The material used through this study was high
impact copolymer polypropylene injection
moulding grade. Impact copolymer PP is widely
used in variety of applications for instant; in the in
the automotive it is used to produce battery cases;
in medical it is used for disposable syringes , also it
is used for appliances and hand tools as well as the
rigid packaging containers and housewares
( Karian, 2003). The reprocessing operations (see
Figure 1) were done under the same moulding
conditions by using 100% of regrind material in
form of product set up, runners and sprues without
using any type of additive materials.
2. Procedure
2.1 Material and sample preparation
Injection moulding high impact copolymer
polypropylene (H814) supplied from ExxonMobil
chemical with melt flow rate of 14 grams/10 min
based on the technical data sheet of this material,
solid density , average molecular weight and shear
viscosity(at shear rate = 6000 sec-1) based on the
laboratory measurements, were 0.8918 grams/cm³,
206,000 g/mol and 14.24 Ps.sec , respectively.
The injection moulding machine used in this
study was a 100 tonne clamp force FANUC
(Roboshot S-2000i-100A) all-electric drive with
screw diameter Ø = 32 mm and L/D = 22:1. The
injected test part was a ASTM D638 tensile bar
specimen with gage length of 90 mm, width of 10
mm and thickness 4mm. The moulding machine
was fitted with a special nozzle adaptor that houses
a melt pressure with a Kistler melt pressure sensor
type 6190A08 and a FOS melt infra-red (IR)
temperature sensor type MTS408-HT. These
sensors are computer monitored along with the
screw position and pressure from a transducer
mounted at the back of the screw. The computer
monitoring system is a National Instruments (NI)
LabVIEW based software application. The signal
conditioning and interface system is through
a NI SCXI unit connected to a 12-bit PCI 6024E
data acquisition card.
Sample collection for subsequent testing on
viscosity index results will be discussed in more
details in section 2.7.1.
2.2 Injection moulding conditions
The melt processing temperature was set to 225 °C,
based on the material technical data sheet. The
mould temperature was set to 25 °C which was also
the minimum controlable setting for the mould
temperature controllers (Regloplas type 90s). Melt
plastication condition was set to 150 rpm for screw
speed and 80 bars for back pressure based on the
technical data sheet. Injection velocity and cooling
time set to 80mm.sec-1, 20 sec respectivily. Gate
frozen time was determined from a range of
holding times against part weight at 100 bar
holding pressure, as shown in Figure 2. The part at
which specimen mass no longer increases with
applied pressure is the gate freeze. In this case the
hold time is taken to be 40 sec. It should be noted
that the tensile sample thickness is 4 mm , but the
runner is 8 mm and will solidify after the tensile
sample. The processing settings are summerized in
Table 1
2.3 Reprocessing sequence
The reprocessing operations started by introducing
4.5Kg of virgin material. The first processing
cycle was named virgin as an output from virgin
material; and subsequent reprocessing cycles were
labelled stage 1, stage 2 and so on up to seven.
After each reprocessing stage, a number of
specimens were extracted for testing and the
remainder (including runners and sprues)
granulated in a ‘Cumberland granulator’ with three
tangential knives. A small portion of regrind
material (about 300 grams) from every stage was
kept for the related tests.
2.4 Part quality
2.4.1 Specimen mass
The mass of a product is commonly used as a “part
quality” indicator and changes of specimen mass
can often be linked to changes in dimensions, and
hence the stability in the specimen mass could
indicate to the stability of the part dimension. The
specimen mass is obtained by measuring the test
sample including the runner and sprue on
a standing mass balance for every reprocessing
stage then the average specimen mass was
calculated.
2.4.2 In-plane shrinkage
Shrinkage behaviour of a moulded plastic part
plays a principle role in determining final
dimensions of the part. Shrinkage occurs due to the
thermal contraction of the molten material during
cooling and the relaxation of stretched polymer
chains (Fathi and Behravesh, 2007). This
phenomenon is affected by many factors including
process parameters at filling, packing and cooling
phases, cooling system design, and material
properties (Fathi and Behravesh, 2007).
In-plane shrinkage was measured in several
locations on the specimen.
Five samples were selected for each
stage to measure the shrinkage; Equation 1
(Mamat et al., 1994) was used to determine the in
plane shrinkage in as a percentage of the cavity
dimension.
R= (1-L/L0).............................................Equation 1
Where L0 is a dimension measured on the mould
cavity and L is the same dimension measured on
the specimen. The mould cavity shape and the
selected measurement positions are shown in
Figure 3.
2.4.3 Colour measurement
The colour of the samples is an important quality
issue where the change of the product colour
could indicate to the degradation phenomena. In
this work the colour of the reprocessing samples
are gradually changed from “white” to
“yellow/light brown” and digital photo was taken
by using Canon digital camera model EOS 350D.
Photo taken in cloudy conditions (no flash), and
all samples (from virgin to stage 7) included
within the same frame. This avoided the need to
build a light controlled environment, but allows
for a reasonable comparison of colour change.
Adobe Photoshop CS 2 version 9 was used to
analyse the yellow colour for the selected images
(for every stage). However, image mode CYMK
(C: cyan, Y: yellow, M: magenta and K: black)
and yellow channel were selected in order to
determine the yellow colour percentage.
2.5 Physical properties
2.5.1 Density
Density is one of the important physical features
for the polymer as it linked to the volume
and crystallinity. It has been measured using
AccuPycTM 1330 Pycnometer. The regrind
materials for each stage in form of pallets were
used, and then the apparatus calculated the best five
readings of the density and provided the average
values.
2.5.2 Crystallinity
Crystallinity is indication of amount of crystalline
region in polymer with respect to amorphous
content. Crystallinity influences many of the
polymer properties such like hardness, tensile,
stiffness, crease and melting point (Gowariker et
al., 1986).
Differential scanning calorimetry “DSC” is
a thermo-analytical technique in which the
difference in the amount of heat required to
increase the temperature of a sample and reference
are measured as a function of temperature. It’s used
to study what happens to polymers when they're
heated and give useful information such like actual
melt temperature; crystallinity and glass transition
temperature. In this work it’s used to determine the
degree of crystallinity for each reprocessing stage
using DSC model Q2000. Universal TA software
was used to analyse the data and the experiment
was done under standard setting using temperature
range of 0 ºC - 220oC and liquid nitrogen was used
for cooling the system at 100 µL min−1, with
heating rate10oC.min-1.
2.5.3 Thermal stability
Thermal degradation of polymeric materials is
an importance issue for industrial viewpoint,
especially in polymer processing and higher
temperature applications.
Thermogravimetric Analysis “TGA” is used to
determine the thermal stability of a material by
measuring mass loss (material evaporation) over
a range of temperature.
TGA model Q5000 was used here, and all samples
were gently prepared by cutting into round shape
(samples weight range is 2 - 4mg) then the samples
were subjected under nitrogen atmosphere using
the temperature range of 35-600ºC and heating rate
of 10ºC.min-1. Universal TA Instruments software
was used to determine the initial degradation
temperature for each stage based on the onset point.
2.5.4 Molecular weight (Mw)
Molecular weight is important because it influences
with many properties such as stiffness, strength,
viscoelasticitic response, toughness, melt & glass
transition temperatures and viscosity. As molecular
weight increases, melt and transition temperatures
along with the mechanical properties will generally
increase. Low Mw materials are typically not useful
in structural applications Gowariker et al., 1986.
In this study gel permeation chromatography model
“GPC” was used, and two runs for each sample
were analysed to determine the average molecular
weight for each reprocessing stage.
2.6 Processing properties
2.6.1 Viscosity index
Viscosity index “VI” is a process measurement that
has been shown to indicate process variation
through material viscosity change and/or process
control (R.G.Speight, 1993). It has been used here
to obtain an indication of material viscosity
changes directly from the process and to identify
regions of process stability within a reprocessing
stage. VI is of absolute metric and well change
with injection velocity, temperature...etc. However,
where the process settings are constant it can be
used to indicate process variations, may be through
statistical process control.
VI was obtained from the available nozzle
pressure signals recorded from FANUC machine
by integrating the area under the nozzle pressure -
time curve, where only the portion from 60% to
80% of the velocity controlled phase is considered.
Figure 4 shows the selected area under the nozzle
pressure curve which is integrated to calculate the
viscosity index. A stable value of VI across cycles
indicates consistent sample manufacture. Sample
here, therefore, selected for stable regions if VI as
shown in Figure 5.
2.6.2 Melt flow index “MFI”
MFI is popular method for comparing and quality
control of materials. MFI is an indicator of
a flow ability of a material (in the melt phase). The
MFI test is often used commercially to monitor
melt batch and discriminate between polymers. The
MFI result is not complete as a full rheological
awe, but has been used here to compliment the
other rheological data. This test is based upon a set
driving pressure that results in a measured mass
flow rate. This test method has been included due
to its popularity and results with be compared with
more extensive viscosity testing.
In the current work, MFI was performed using
Kayeness melt flow indexer model 7050 using die
diameter of 2.01 mm at the temperature of 230ºC
and the constant weight of 2.16 kg according to
ASTM D1238. Five samples were cut off at 2
minutes interval and then weighted to determine
the flow rate in grams per minutes. This test is
repeated three times and the average of the melt
flow index was reported as grams.10 min-1. An
approximate value for MFI can be calculated using
Poiseulle law as shown in Equation 2 Kelly et al.,
2009 below:
γº = 4Q/πR3 .............................................Equation 2
Where, Q is a volumetric flow rate (m3 /sec) and
R is a radius of the capillary (m).
2.6.3 Shear viscosity
Rheologically, viscosity is the resistance of a fluid
to flow, caused by its internal friction, which
makes it resist flowing past a solid surface and
makes layers of the fluid resist flowing past other
layers (Johannaber, 1983). Viscosity is very
important to the injection moulding process and it’s
affected by the temperature of the material. The
effect of shear rate on viscosity is very important as
the viscosity can reduce several orders of
magnitude when the shear rate is increased
(pseudo-plastic shear thinning). This is a very
important in injection moulding as very high local
shear rates can be present within the flow path, in
particular at the gate region, where the channel is
very small and the flow velocity is relatively high.
In this work, viscosity measured off line over the
seven reprocessing stages. Two methods were
employed to determine low (rotational rheometer)
and high shear rate viscosity (capillary rheometer).
Low strain rate measurements (0.1-100 sec-1, for
all reprocessing stages) were made on an Anton-
Paar MCR501 rotational rheometer using a 25 mm
diameter parallel plate geometry with a gap size of
1 mm and a strain of 5%. This strain value is within
the linear viscoelastic regime for all melts tested as
confirmed by amplitude sweep measurements on
the rheometer. Melt viscosity at higher shear rate
(500-6000 sec-1) was studied using twin bore
Rosand RH10 capillary rheometer, Dual pistons of
diameter 15 mm were used to drive melt flow
through capillary dies at speeds up to 20 mm.s-1
and the a maximum crosshead force of 100 kN .
One pair of long and short capillary dies with entry
angle of 180º and Ø=1 mm. One barrel of the
rheometer was fitted with a capillary die with
an L: D ratio of 16 (long die) and the other bore
was fitted with zero length die. The melt
temperature was 230°C on all cases. The material
was subjected to precompression pressures of 1.0
and 0.5 MPa for the long and short dies
respectively, and subjected to a total preheating
time of 540 sec. Rosand flowmaster control
software was used to analyse this data.
2.6.4 Mechanical properties
Tensile test samples were analysed to determine the
tensile properties (Young's modulus and percentage
of elongation at yield) along flexural strength.
‘Instron testing machine’ model 5564 using
‘Instron Bluehill software’ was utilised for testing
and data analysis.
The tests were carried out at room temperature (20-
22ºC) and relative humidity of 50 %. For tensile
test, three crosshead speeds (200mm.min-1, 250
mm.min-1 and 300mm.min-1) were selected
according to the ASTM test properties for this
material. On other hand, 300mm.min-1 was selected
for 3 points bending test. It should be noted that the
specimens were selected for each speed category
based on viscosity index as explained in section
2.6.1.
3- Results and Discussion
3.1 Part quality
3.1.1 Specimen mass
In this study, the specimen mass is consistent at
any given reprocessing stage, but mass slightly
increases over the seven reprocessing stages. This
is shown in Figure 6 , where the mass increase
from virgin to stage 7 is around 0.2 %. The process
parameter settings are consistent for all of the
reprocessing stages. An increase in specimen mass
may be linked to reductions in melt viscosity, (as
described in sections 3.3.1 and 3.3.3) along with
increase in crystallinity and density entitled in
section 3.2.1.
3.1.2 In-plane shrinkage
It can be noted from Figure 7 that the shrinkage
through thickness (D1, D2 and D3) reduces along
the flow path. Similarly, the shrinkage through
width (W1, W2 and W3) reduces along the flow
path. Oppositely, the shrinkage increases along the
length of the specimen (L), which is along the flow
direction. This is due to the fact that the crystalline
materials tend to have high shrinkage and the
shrinkage is grater in the direction of flow than
across the direction of flow (Bryce, 1996). The
shrinkage at “L” position has a relative increase of
27% from virgin to stage 7. Regarding to the
thickness, the higher percentage of shrinkage is
1.46, located at D1 (stage 7). Similarly, the width
has a percentage of shrinkage of 1.33, located at
W1 (stage 7) .This is might be as a result of the
moulded part has more tendency toward the
shrinkage in the posions that more closes to the
direction of flow (ie.D1,W1) , because the other
positions of the part (ie.D3,W3) are already filled
and started to solidify earlier than others.
According to ASTM D955, the shrinkage range of
polypropylene material related to injection
moulding is between 0.254-0.762 mm/mm (Bryce,
1996), this could lead to say the calculated
shrinkage in this work is slightly low and hence
the moulded parts produced in every reprocessing
stages have tendency toward dimensional stability.
3.1.3 Colour measurement
The aesthetics of a polymeric material may be an
important quality feature, depending upon the end
use of the product. The colour change has been
assessed by the percentage of yellow within the
colour spectrum. The colour analysis indicated to
the yellowness started to be appeared gradually
from stage 4 as shown in Figure 8. This is,
probably, as a result from repetitive heat
reprocessing stages and might be caused by
oxidative degradation that taken place during
reprocessing operations, but it could be said that
percentage of yellow up to stage 3 has little change
from the virgin as a reference.
In industry, to accept or refuse the relative
change in the product’s colour is absolutely
depended on the type of application, and the
customer’s specifications/requirements. However,
this problem can be solved, if no severe or sharp
drop in the mechanical properties, by adding
pigments or artificial colours.
3.2 Physical properties
3.2.1 Density & crystallinity
Polypropylene is a semi-crystalline material
consisting of amorphous and crystalline regions
(Gowariker et al., 1986). The density of the bulk
material is dependent upon the relative volume
fractions of the amorphous (low density) and
crystalline (high density)phases (Gowariker et al.,
1986). As shown in Figure 9, the density increases
slightly (by 0.48%) with reprocessing stages from
virgin to stage 7 reprocessed material. This
correlates well with the 4% increases in
crystallinity observed over 8 stages as shown in
Figure 10.
3.2.2 Thermal stability
Thermal degradation is an irreversible effect due to
the breaking of chemical bonds. Results are
reported as percentage of mass loss as a function of
temperature, and the results of virgin and stage 7
are shown in Figure 11. The typical processing
temperature based on the material data sheet is
located between 199 ºC to 226 ºC and the
experimental set point is 225 ºC (based on the
actual setting temperature in the Fanuc machine).
It can be noted from Figure 11, the initial
degradation temperatures of the virgin and stage 7
are 400.6 ºC and 399.78 ºC, respectively.
Therefore, these results indicate to there is no
significant change, in practical processing terms of
the degradation temperature for these stages.
3.2.3 Molecular weight
The importance to study the Mw behaviour here,
due to it has influenced with processing and
mechanical properties over 8 reprocessing stages.
Figure 12 shows the average molecular weight over
seven reprocessing stages. As can be seen in this
graph, the data has some fluctuations across the
stages, but the general trend is for Mw result to
reduce the average Mw on 10% from virgin to
stage7. A reduction in molecular weight with
increasing the number of reprocessing stages could
be linked to the reduction of the amount of the
material chain branching and the changing in
chemical bonds as a result of material degradation.
The behaviour of Mw over 8 reprocessing stages
has clear correlated with shear viscosity as
mentioned in the section 3.3.3. In spite of seven
reprocessing stages, this reduction in Mw could be
considered as a little and reasonable.
The behaviour of molecular weight has clear effect
and has linked with mechanical properties as
represented in section 3.4.
3.3 Processing properties
3.3.1 Viscosity index
In-line process measurement is comparative
technique was used at process where the
measurement was taken directly in real time as
mentioned before. However, it can be seen from
Figure 13, a little reduction in viscosity index.
Stage 7, for example, is reducing 14% from the
virgin. This reduction in viscosity index as a result
from reducing of the nozzle pressure due to the
material is easier to flow as explained in section
3.3.2, and this cause to the cavity has filled more.
Therefore, this probably causes to increase the
specimen mass.
3.3.2 MFI
In this work, MFI result is not complete as a full
rheological awe, but has been used here to
compliment the other rheological data. However,
from Figure 14, it can be noted that the MFI
increases with relative percentage of 43% from
virgin to stage 7. The shear rate presented in Figure
14 is generated using Poiseulle law (equation 2).
The shear rate of the melt also increases along the
reprocessing stages. However, when the material
become easier to flow, the cavity will be filled
more and hence the specimen mass will be
increased, this may explain the behaviour of
specimen mass which was increasing over 8
reprocessing stages .
 MFI is an indirect indicate to the molecular
weight, high melt flow rate corresponding to low
molecular weight (La Mantia, 2002) as presented in
section 3.3.

3.3.3 Viscosity
Shear viscosity has been determined using both the
Anton Paar rotational viscometer (low shear) and
the Rosand RH10 two bore capillary rheometer
(intermediate to high shear). The data for virgin
and all reprocessing stages has not been presented
on a single axis since discrimination between the
data is difficult. Instead, the viscosity of each stage
is presented at specific shear rates. These are 0.1,
100, 500, 6000 sec-1 shown in Figure 15(a, b) and
Figure 16 (a&b), respectively. Figures 15&16 show
the change in shear viscosity over 8 reprocessing
stages (-33% at 0.1 sec-1 , -20% at 100 sec-1, -13%
at 500 sec-1 and -11% at 6000 sec-1) . Figure 17
shows the rheologized behaviour of the virgin
material and that after 7 reprocessing stages over
the full range of shear rates studied.
A reduction in viscosity could be related to the
reduction of the amount of the material chain
branching as well as overall molecular weight as
explained in section 3.2.3.

3.4 Mechanical properties

Mechanical properties have been assessed through
tensile (modulus of elasticity, % of EL at yield) and
flexural (flexural strength) tests. In the former case,
the strain is determined through crosshead
displacement. Figure 18 shows the modulus of
elasticity at all crosshead speeds of 200, 250 and
300 mm.min-1. From Figure 18, it can be noted that
the modulus decreased with increasing crosshead
speed. This is might be related to the crystallinity
that cause to the material become more brittle, and
hence the elasticity is reduced by increasing the
crosshead speed. However, the modulus is reduced
with relative percentage of 16%. Similarly the
percentage of elongation at yield is reduced 25%
(see Figure 19). Flexural strength, on other hand
has less reduction with percentage of 11% from
virgin as a reference as shown in Figure 20. These
reductions due to the repetitive shearing stages
(that may cause to reduce the viscosity and lead to
decrease the molecular weight) and also this
material has a tendency to become more brittle, and
less ductility.
Some investigators presented the same behaviour
of the modulus and the elongation of polypropylene
material for multiple reprocessing stages
(La Mantia, 2002;Dintcheva and La Mantia, 2003;
Meran et al., 2008 ).
 Table 1 Moulding settings 15.5
Parameter Setting 15.4
Barrel temperature 225 C° 15.3

Specimen mass (grams)

Nozzle temperature 225 C° 15.2
Back pressure 80 bar 15.1
Holding pressure 100 bar 15
14.9
Cooling time 20 sec
Holding time 45 sec 14.8
14.7 a
Shot Size 33 mm
14.6
Screw rotation speed 150 rpm
14.5 Holding pressure: 100bars
Injection velocity 80 mm/sec
14.4
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55
Holding time (sec)

Figure 2 Specimen mass vs. holding time

(a: specimen with runner)

Positions (in mm)

L =110.49 D1=4.11 W1=20.18
D2=4.1 W2=10.05
D3=4.06 W3=20.18

Figure 1 Reprocessing procedure Figure 3 Mould cavity shape and measurement

locations
 15.48

15.47

Specimen mass (grams)

15.46

15.45

15.44

15.43
Virgin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Stage no.

Figure 4 Viscosity index is calculated from a portion Figure 6 Specimen mass for all stages
of the primary injection pressure-time date

14
Stage7
Stage6
12 Stage5
Stage4
Stage3
Shrinkage (%)

10 Stage2
Stage1
8 Virgin

0
W1 W2 W3 D1 D2 D3 L
Shrinkage Positions

Figure 5 Viscosity index for all stages Figure 7 Shrinkage effects over 7 reprocessing
stages
 25.8
7

6 25.6

% of Crystallinity
7
5 25.4
6

Increasing of yellowness
Stage no.

4 5
25.2
3 4
3
2 25
2
1 1 24.8

Virgin Virgin
24.6
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 Virgin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
% of Yellow Stage no.

Figure 8 Colour measurements (Yellowness Figure 10 Percentage of crystallinity

produced in moulded parts by each one of the 7
stages of injection)

0.897 120

0.896
100
0.895
Density (grams/cm³)

Weight (%)

80 Virgin
0.894
Stage 7
0.893 60

0.892
40
0.891
20
0.890

0.889 0
Virgin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 270 310 350 390 430 470

Stage no. Temperature (C°)

Figure 9 Density for all stages Figure 11 TGA result: mass vs. temperature
 195000
Average molecular weight (gm/mol)

190000

185000

180000

175000
21
43
170000 20 MFI
virgin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 41
Stage no. 19
γ°(sec¯¹ ) 39

MFI (g.10 min¯¹)

18
37

γ°(sec¯¹)
17
Figure 12 Average molecular weight for all stages 35
16 33
15 31

14 29

13 27
Virgin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Stage no.

30
29.5 Figure 14 MFI and shear rate for all stages
29
Viscosity Index

28.5
28
27.5
27
26.5
26
25.5
Virgin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Stage no.

Figure 13 Viscosity index for all stages

 1300 76.0
1250
γº =0.1 sec¯¹ 74.0 γº =500 sec¯¹
1200
1150 72.0

ɳ (Pa.sec)
ɳ (Pa.sec)

1100
70.0
1050
1000 68.0

950 66.0
900
64.0
850
800 62.0
Virgin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Virgin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Stage no. Stage no.

(a) (a)

340 15.5

320 γº =100 sec¯¹ 15.0 γº =6000 sec¯¹

300
14.5
ɳ (Pa.sec)

ɳ (Pa.sec)

280
14.0
260
13.5
240
13.0
220

200 12.5
Virgin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Virgin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Stage no. Stage no.
(b) (b)

Figure 15 Melt viscosity at low shear rate Figure 16 Melt viscosity at high shear rate
(a: γº =0.1 sec¯¹ and b: γº =100 sec¯¹) (a: γº =500 sec¯¹ and b: γº =6000 sec¯¹)
 10000 7.50
Virgin Stage 7 % of El. at 200 mm.min¯¹
7.00 % of El. at 250 mm.min¯¹

% of Elongation at yield
1000 % of El. at 300 mm.min¯¹
ɳ (Pa.sec)-log scale

6.50

100 6.00
Anton Paar MCR
501 rotational 5.50
rheometer
10
Rosand RH10 5.00
capillary rheometer
1 4.50
0.1 1 10 100 1000 10000 Virgin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
γº (sec¯¹)- log scale Stage No.

Figure 17 Shear viscosity data from Anton Parr Figure 19 Percentage of elongation at yield
rotational rheometer (low shear) and Rosand
capillary rheometer (high shear) for virgin and
stage 7

680 27
200 mm.min¯¹
660 26.5
250 mm.min¯¹
Flexural strentgh (MPa)
Modolus of Elasticity (MPa)

640 300 mm.min¯¹ 26

620
25.5
600
25
580
24.5
560
24
540
520 23.5

500 23
Virgin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Virgin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Stage No. Stage no.

Figure 18 Modulus of elasticity Figure 20 Flexural Strength

4- Conclusions
This study has investigated the effects of
reprocessing a polypropylene material. Effects
have been investigated in terms of:

Part quality (mass, in-plane shrinkage and
colour).

Physical properties (density, crystallinity,
thermal stability and molecular weight).

Processing properties (viscosity index,
melt flow index, and melt viscosity at high
and low shear rate).

Mechanical properties (Young’s modulus,
percentage of elongation at yield and
flexural strength).
Tensile samples have been moulded using an
injection moulding machine (high precision Fanuc
all-electric drive) and the moulding conditions have
been maintained consistently for each reprocessing
stage. Some samples where set aside for testing
whilst others where regranulated using a standard
blade regranulating machine. The following points
can be concluded:
1- The current work demonstrates the
possibility to reprocess 100% of regrind PP
material over seven successful repetitive
stages and full tensile test specimen
products can be manufactured under the
same moulding conditions.
2- Part quality: the positive behaviour
(stability) of specimen mass and in-plane
shrinkage could be, as a result of consistent
moulding conditions (holding pressure,
holding time). Aaesthetically, changing in
the colour acceptance depending upon the
end use of the product. In this study, the
yellowness (from white to yellow/light
brown) started to be appeared clearly from
stage 4.
3- Physical properties: a reduction in shear
viscosity (-11%) at shear rate of 6000 sec-1
along with viscosity index (-13%) over 8
reprocessing stages lead to reduce the
overall molecular weight (-10%), this could
allowing some of the material chains to align
more readily and hence increase crystallinity
(4%) and MFI (43%). Based on TGA result,
it can be noted that there no significant
difference between virgin the stage7, and
hence the degradation behaviour is seemed
to be stabilized over 8 reprocessing stages.
4- Mechanical properties: in industry, to accept
or refuse the relative decrease related to
mechanical properties is absolutely
depended on the type of application, and the
customer’s specifications/requirements. But
it could be said that the modulus of
elasticity (at all crosshead speeds), flexural
strength have reasonable change, where
Young’s modulus and flexural strength have
percentage of reduction of 5% for from the
virgin as a reference.
Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the technical staff
in IRC polymer engineering at the University of
Bradford for their help and support.
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