Recycling of Glass Fibers from Fiberglass Polyester Waste Composite for the Manufacture of Glass-Ceramic Materials

Abstract

This work presents the feasibility of reusing a glass fiber resulting from the thermolysis and gasification of waste composites to obtain glass-ceramic tiles. Polyester fiberglass (PFG) waste was treated at 550℃ for 3 h in a 9.6 dm3 thermolytic reactor. This process yielded an oil (≈24 wt%), a gas (≈8 wt%) and a solid residue (≈68 wt%). After the polymer has been removed, the solid residue is heated in air to oxidize residual char and remove surface contamination. The cleaning fibers were converted into glass-ceramic tile. A mixture consisting of 95 wt% of this solid residue and 5% Na2O was melted at 1450℃ to obtain a glass frit. Powder glass samples (<63 μm) was then sintered and crystallized at 1013℃, leading to the formation of wollastonite-plagioclase glass-ceramic materials for architectural applications. Thermal stability and crystallization mechanism have been studied by Differential Thermal Analysis. Mineralogy analyses of the glass-ceramic materials were carried out using X-ray Diffraction.

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F. López, M. Martín, I. García-Díaz, O. Rodríguez, F. Alguacil and M. Romero, "Recycling of Glass Fibers from Fiberglass Polyester Waste Composite for the Manufacture of Glass-Ceramic Materials," Journal of Environmental Protection, Vol. 3 No. 8, 2012, pp. 740-747. doi: 10.4236/jep.2012.38088.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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