Wear resistant composites based on polypropylene filled with potassium polytitanate and their utilization by autocatalytic cracking

The aim of this work is to investigate new, relatively cheap and effective catalyst, which could be used as PP fillers in the primary production of polymer matrix composites with improved mechanical properties and, at the same time, characterized with high catalytic activity in the process of the PP-based composites recycling by the thermo-catalytic cracking. Two kinds of the protonated potassium polytitanate (PPT), having platy shape of particles and characterized with low friction coefficient and high reflectance of UV radiation, but different Ti⁴⁺/Ti³⁺ molar ratio, are investigated as such functional fillers. It is shown that the admixture of the PPT fillers (10 wt.%) allows obtaining the PP-matrix composites characterized with increased values of Young modulus and, especially, wear resistance, in comparison with the materials filled with talc. It is shown that the PP matrix composites containing the PPT fillers can be directly used for pyrolytic processing due to high catalytic activity in the cracking processes taking place at moderate temperatures (~ 450 °C). The chemical composition of gaseous and liquid products, obtained as a result of this processing, is investigated. Some differences in the chemical composition of the products are considered taking into account chemical and structural features of the PPT and zeolite catalysts.