Context:

Tetra Pak® is a common material used for the production of food containers. Currently, those containers are recycled by physical separation of the cellulose fibers through a hydro pulped process, but sometimes separating the individual components is not economically viable. This work evaluates an alternative process to obtain composites from recycled Tetra Pak®.

Methodology:

Tetra Pak® used containers were collected and cut into small pieces at the laboratory. Then, the containers were hot-pressed to obtain sheets in a manual hydraulic press by using different configurations. Samples were cut, and their tensile strength was evaluated (ASTM D3039). Failure analysis of samples was carried out by FE-SEM to identify issues related to processing and to understand the differences in mechanical properties.

Results:

The results showed that the lowest tensile strength was 9.5 MPa (type I sample) and the highest tensile strength was 37.4 MPa (type III sample).

Conclusions:

The results of mechanical tests show that this material can be used for non-structural purposes in the building industry. Failure analysis shows that fiber pull-out and delamination are the most important failure mechanisms in type I samples. For type III sample, failure was produced by a sequence of intralaminar fractures.

Financing:

Instituto Tecnológico Metropolitano de Medellín