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rectang 2 hours ago

There are two recycling mechanisms:

> After use, the material can simply be ground into powder and pressed into a new shape while heated, causing the bonds to rearrange themselves. This is known as thermomechanical recycling.

> it can also be chemically dissolved

I wonder whether either of these opens up any practical durability issues for this variety of epoxy.

vesinisa 13 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

This is covered in the article.

> We have carried out ten [thermomechanical] recycling cycles, and the epoxy has not lost any significant mechanical strength in the process

Chemical dissolving is only needed for carbon fiber composite. 90% of the resin was cited to be recoverable in this process.

rectang 4 minutes ago | parent [-]

I saw that passage, which addresses that durability doesn't degrade through recycling cycles. But what I was curious about was whether this epoxy is more susceptible to weakening when exposed to heat in working environments, perhaps at lower threshold temperatures than common epoxy. Similarly, I wondered whether there were any chemicals which are commonly encountered in working environments which could serve as dissolving agents and damage this epoxy.

hammock 21 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I don’t know of any recycled polymer that doesn’t have at least somewhat compromised durability. Doesn’t mean it’s useless though