Nine urban intertidal regions in Burrard Inlet, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, were sampled for plastic debris. Debris included macro and micro plastics and originated from a wide diversity of uses ranging from personal hygiene to solar cells. Debris was characterized for its polymer through standard physiochemical characteristics, then subject to a weak acid extraction to remove the meta...

Sequestering semi-polar compounds can be difficult with low-density polyethylene (LDPE), but those pollutants may be more efficiently absorbed using silicone. In this work, optimized methods for cleaning, infusing reference standards, and polymer extraction are reported along with field comparisons of several silicone materials for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and pesticides. In a fi...

The conductivity of high-resistivity polymer films is dependent on the magnitude of applied electric field, repeated electric field exposure, and sample temperature. A traditional constant voltage method was used, maintained under vacuum to more closely resemble the space environment. Both the strength of the applied voltage and the thickness of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) samples were vari...

In this study, two strains of Aspergillus sp. and Lysinibacillus sp. with remarkable abilities to degrade low-density polyethylene (LDPE) were isolated from landfill soils in Tehran using enrichment culture and screening procedures. The biodegradation process was performed for 126 days in soil using UV- and non-UV-irradiated pure LDPE films without pro-oxidant additives in the presence and abse...

We have fabricated three-layer films, comprising a varying content of ethylene–vinyl alcohol copolymer (EVOH) as the internal layer and blends of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and low-density ethylene grafted with maleic anhydride (LDPE-g-MAH) as the external layers, by a coextrusion blown-film process. We chose to use blends to promote the adhesion between EVOH and LDPE and to reduce the num...

In this study, pyrolysis of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) and LDPE with aluminum (C/LDPE) wastes was carried out different heating rates (5, 10, 20 °C/min) at temperatures (400, 600, 800 °C). Product yields C/LDPE were compared, optimum liquid products analyzed to utilize as commercial waxes for future use. The properties pyrolyzed investigated proximate, elemental analysis, TGA. as-produced ...

In this paper the pendant drop method to measure interfacial tension between molten polymers is reviewed. A typical pendant drop apparatus is presented. The algorithms used to infer interfacial tension from the geometrical profile of the pendant drop are described in details, in particular a new routine to evaluate correctly the value of the radius at the apex of the drop, necessary to the calc...

The by-products of dicumyl peroxide (DCP) from the crosslinking process such as acetophenone, cumyl alcohol and α-methylstyrene are said to be the sources of space charge formation in XLPE cable due to deep traps in the chemicals. However, by using space-chargeexperimental approach, it appeared that these chemicals show a different trapping nature. This paper is intended to present this approac...

In this work plasma immersion (PI) was applied to Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) and Polyethylene Terephtalate (PET) to improve their characteristics for food packaging. The effects of plasma composition were investigated by comparing treatments using N2 and SF6. Different treatment times were used at a total reactor pressure of 1.33 Pa composed by a steel vacuum chamber containing two interna...