UV and outdoor weathering of glass fiber reinforced polycarbonate/acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene composites and recycling of aged composites

Polymeric materials usage is rising, and they are exposed to some effects such as temperature, light, water throughout their lifetime. Increase in use of polymer has led to waste problems. From an environmental point of view, recycling (reprocessing) of polymers is one of the viable solutions to diminish waste issues. Thus, in this work, the effect of reprocessing for aged glass fiber reinforced polycarbonate/acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (PC/ABS) composites having different glass fiber content was determined on the mechanical properties (tensile, impact, flexural), melt flow index and morphology. Virgin glass fiber reinforced PC/ABS specimens were exposed to two environments, namely artificial accelerated ageing in a QUV chamber for up to 336 h and natural ageing in Gebze (Turkey) for up to 1 year between January 2018 and January 2019 to determine the influence of a long-term outdoor exposure on the properties. After these ageing steps, naturally and UV aged specimens were ground and the ground specimens were mixed with virgin glass fiber reinforced PC/ABS at ratios of 25%, 50% and 75% by weight. The mixed materials were re-molded to fabricate test specimens and then characterized. In brief, in current research, the mechanical, rheological, and morphological properties of virgin, aged in outdoors for 12 months, aged in UV chamber for 336 h and blends of virgin-aged glass fiber reinforced PC/ABS composites were studied. Because there is no research regarding natural and UV ageing of PC/ABS having different glass fiber content, this study represents an important contribution to determining behavior of these composites after ageing. From experimental study, in general, it was found that mechanical properties decreased with natural and UV ageing, but some retention in properties could be achieved with the incorporation of pure polymer.