title: Particle size, size distribution and morphological evaluation of glass fiber reinforced plastic (GRP) industrial by-product.
abstract: The waste management of glass fiber reinforced polymer (GRP) materials, in particular those made with thermosetting resins, is a critical issue for the composites industry because these materials cannot be reprocessed. Therefore, most thermosetting GRP waste is presently sent to landfill, in spite of the significant environmental impact caused by their disposal in this way. The limited GRP waste recycling worldwide is mostly due to its intrinsic thermosetting properties, lack of characterization data and unavailability of viable recycling and recovery routes. One of the possibility for re-using GRP industrial by-product is in form of powder as a partial aggregate replacement or filler addition in cement based composites for applications in sustainable construction materials and technologies. However, the feasibility of this kind of reutilization strongly depends on the morphology and particle size distribution of a powder made up of polymer granules and glass fibers. In the present study, the use of image analysis method, based on scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and ImageJ processing program, is proposed in order to evaluate the morphology of the particles and measure the particle size and size distribution of fine GRP waste powder. The obtained results show a great potential of such a method in order to be considered as a standardized method of measurement and analysis in order to characterize the grain size and size distribution of GRP particles before exploiting any compatibility issue for its recycling management.
authors.affiliation: Department of "Sciences and Engineering of Matter, Environment and Urban Planning (SIMAU)", Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy. Electronic address: a.mazzoli@univpm.it.
authors.forename: Alida
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mazzoli
authors.affiliation: Department of "Sciences and Engineering of Matter, Environment and Urban Planning (SIMAU)", Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italy.
authors.forename: Giacomo
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Moriconi
keywords: Glass reinforced plastic; Image analysis; ImageJ; Scanning electron microscopy