Preparation and Mechanical Properties of Bulk Molding Compound Composite Prepared using Recycled FRP Waste Powder

In general, fiber-reinforced plastics (FRP) wastes are simply buried or burned. Landfill brings about a permanent contamination of soil due to the inability of FRP to decompose and incineration causes an issue of generating toxic gases and dusts. There have been several ways to treat the FRP wastes such as landfill, incineration, chemical recycling, material recycling and the utilization of energy from combustion. Most methods excluding material recycling are known to have critical limitations in economic, technical and environmental manners. However it is known that material recycling is most desirable among the methods handling FRP wastes. In this study, to investigate the purpose of feasibility of material recycling, various bulk molding compound (BMC) specimens were prepared with the various contents of unsaturated polyester resin binder (25, 30, 35 wt%) and the various replacement ratios of FRP wastes powder (0, 25, 50, 75, 100 wt%) substituted for filler. To evaluate the physical properties BMC specimens, various tests such as tensile strength, flexural strength, impact strength, hot water resistance and SEM imaging were conducted. As a results, mechanical strengths decreased with an increase of replacement ratio of FRP waste powder and physical properties of BMC specimens were deteriorated in the hot water resistance. The fluidity of BMC with more than 50 wt% of the replacement ratio of FRP wastes powder decreased remarkably, causing a problem in the BMC composite.