COMPOSITES FROM PREPREGS Development of Composites from Prepregs of Recycled PPS/PTFE Hot Gas Filters

The dispose of waste hot-gas bag filters has been a growing public concern due to the fast augment in amounts and its high pollutive feature. The main recycling approaches include dissociation or decomposition of waste filters which are complicated in processing and high in cost. This work raised a strategy by turning the waste polyphenylene sulfide/polytetrafluoroethylene filters (PPF) into prepregs and using as the reinforcement or binding layers in composites. The developed composites with merely two layers of PPF prepregs could achieve a flexural strength of 27.35 MPa and an interlaminar shear strength of 28.72 MPa. By incorporating GF or CF skin layers, the flexural and shear strengths of composites raised to 181.81 and 43.81 MPa. The honeycomb core PPF composites were able developed with increased thickness and limited addition in weight. The used PPF composites with and without honeycomb cores exhibited excellent flame retardancy with high LOIs up to 38.3%. The low cost, sufficient mechanical properties and flame retardant nature proved the potential of these used filter composites to be applied in various high-profit fields. More importantly, the water and soil pollutions, high energy consumption caused by the conventional dispose or recycle approaches can be avoided.