Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers, vol.132, 2022 (SCI-Expanded)
© 2021 Taiwan Institute of Chemical EngineersBackground: The increasing costs of polymer materials and the environmental pollution caused by their waste make the use of recycled materials increasingly important. Waste polyvinyl(butyral) (PVB-W) recycled from end-of-life vehicle windshields has attracted intensive attention as a usable and abundant resource. However, large amounts of PVB-W are still buried in landfills due to the lack of recycling techniques and difficulty in achieving uniform control over the properties of the recycled polymer. Methods: As an opportunity, this work reports the recycling of PVB by chemical and the fabrication of its electrospun nanofibers, which can be used in various applications such as textile, coating, filtration, and adsorption. In this regard, the electrospun nanofibers were fabricated from both recycled and commercial PVB in random or aligned morphology using the static or rotating collector. The electrospun nanofibers were characterized through various techniques. (i.e. infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, Differential scanning calorimetry, scanning electron microscope, atomic force microscope, and nanoindentation). Findings: The results showed that recycled PVB nanofibers and commercial PVB (C-PVB) nanofibers have similar physicochemical and morphological features, and recycled PVB nanofibers are of the same quality as commercial PVB nanofibers, which can serve the industry in many fields. This research can initiate an innovative path to PVB-W based fibrous materials with desired properties, which will widen the reuse of PVB-W.