Building blend from recycling acrylonitrile–butadiene–styrene and high impact-resistance polystyrene through dextro-glucose

As the constantly upgrading of electronic product, and the number of plastic shells of waste electronic products is also increasing sharply. Acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (ABS) and high impact-resistance polystyrene (HIPS) account for a large part, but ABS and HIPS not only have similar densities, but also have similar chemical properties, which make it difficult to separate ABS and HIPS. Therefore, the preparation of composite materials by blending waste ABS and waste HIPS is an important method to realize the high-value reuse of waste ABS and waste HIPS. In this work, d-glucose (d-Glucose) was used as a compatibilizing agent for the first time to modify recycling acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (rABS) and recycling high impact-resistance polystyrene (rHIPS) by melt blending. The d-Glucose has multiple hydroxyl groups, and it can react with the aging groups of butadiene in rABS/rHIPS to form ester groups, repairs broken molecular chains and improves compatibility between two phases to enhance the mechanical properties. The results show that the impact strength, tensile strength, flexural strength and storage modulus of the resulted rABS/rHIPS blend have been enhanced. When added the number of d-Glucose accounts for 5 wt% of the total components, the notched impact strength reaches 9.67 kJ/m2, which is 128% higher than that before modification. Compared with other researchers, not only the impact strength is greatly improved, but also the tensile strength and flexural strength are improved. The mechanisms for the enhancement is studied and discussed.