Working group of Polymer Materials Development and Recycling

Head: Zdeněk Krulis, PhD
(phone +420-222518692, e-mail krulis@imc.cas.cz)

Research

The activity of the Group is focused on several topics having character of basic research as well as on more practical problems connected with development and/or modification of multiphase polymer materials and with recycling of plastics waste.

Development and/or modification of multiphase polymer materials

The applied research projects deal with blends of polystyrene/polyolefin, polyamide/ABS, polyethylene/polypropylene, polycarbonate/SAN and others using non-reactive as well as reactive compatibilizers. The aim of these projects is attaining balanced combination of end-use properties such as barrier mechanical characteristics, chemical resistance - toughness, etc.

Special attention is devoted to recycling of commingled plastics waste using special reactive compatibilizing systems leading to high-impact materials, preserving thermoplastic behaviour.

Current research topics also encompass:

• Long-term degradation and aging experiments with polyolefins, styrene polymers and their blends, estimation of residual oxidation stability of aged samples and lifetime predictions, as well as efficiency evaluation of various stabilizer systems.
• Correlation of the extent of oxidative deterioration with changes in processability in connection with successful recycling of polymers; contribution of restabilization.
• Exploitation of thermoanalytical methods (DSC, TGA) for characterization of homopolymers, polymer blends, composites and block copolymers.