To decrease the amount of plastic waste, the use of recycling techniques become a necessity. However, numerous recycling cycles result in the mechanical, thermal, and chemical degradation of the polymer, which leads to an inefficient use of recycled polymers for the production of plastic products. In this study, the effects of recycling and the improvement of polymer performance with the incorporation of an additive into recycled polypropylene was studied by spectroscopic, rheological, optical, and mechanical characterization techniques. The results showed that after 20 recycling steps of mechanical processing of polypropylene, the main degradation processes of polypropylene are chain scission of polymer chains and oxidation, which can be improved by the addition of a stabilizing additive. It was shown that a small amount of an additive significantly improves the properties of the recycled polypropylene up to the 20th reprocessing cycle. The use of an additive improves the rheological properties of the recycled melt, surface properties, and time-dependent mechanical properties of solid polypropylene since it was shown that the additive acts as a hardener and additionally crosslinks the recycled polymer chains.

Polyisobutylene (PIB) is commonly used as a primary sealant in multi-layer insulating glazing elements, where temperatures often exceed 100 °C. At such conditions, PIB undergoes structural changes, causing different relaxation dynamics and leading to decreased lifetime of the material. Understanding thermal behavior is therefore imperative for achieving effective insulation of these materials for long-term use in insulating application. The present study was focused on the temperature dependence of viscoelastic behavior of two commercially available polyisobutylene (PIB) materials, which are commonly used as primary sealants for energy-efficient multi-layer glazing units. The long-term viscoelastic behavior of the materials before and after thermal treatment at high temperatures was studied by using time–temperature superposition (tTS). Van-Gurp–Palmen plots were obtained directly from experimental data and enabled the study of thermally induced changes, while the relaxation time spectra were calculated from master curves and enabled the calculation of molecular weight distribution. The results showed that, after thermal treatment, the structure of PIB materials changes from linear to branched, while the molecular weight distributions transition from monomodal to bimodal. The untreated samples exhibited viscous-like behavior, while the thermally stabilized samples exhibited solid-like behavior, extending the material response for ~6 decades towards a longer timescale. Moreover, the presented results can be directly used to simulate the mechanical responses of the sealants using currently available FEM software packages to predict their functional and structural lifetime.

The physical properties as well as thermal and electrical stability of copper particles can be improved by surface protection, which mainly depends on the coating material. Our study was, therefore, focused on the rheological, thermal, mechanical and electrical characterization of polymer composites by comparing uncoated (Cu), silver-coated (Cu@Ag) and silica-coated (Cu@Si) copper flakes in low-density polyethylene at various volume concentrations (up to 40%). Interactions among particles were investigated by rheological properties, as these indicate network formation (geometrical entanglement), which is important for mechanical reinforcement as well as establishing an electric pathway (electrical percolation). The results showed that geometrical and electrical percolation were the same for Cu and Cu@Si, ~15%, while, surprisingly, Cu@Ag exhibited much lower percolation, ~7.5%, indicating the fusion of the Ag coating material, which also decreased crystal growth (degree of crystallinity). Furthermore, the magnitude of the rheological and mechanical response remained the same for all investigated materials, indicating that the coating materials do not provide any load transfer capabilities. However, they profoundly affect electron transfer, in that, Cu@Ag exhibited superior conductivity (74.4 S/m) compared to Cu (1.7 × 10⁻⁴ S/m) and Cu@Si (1.5 × 10⁻¹⁰ S/m). The results obtained are important for the design of advanced polymer composites for various applications, particularly in electronics where enhanced electrical conductivity is desired.

The present research addresses the modeling of viscoelastic–viscoplastic behavior of polymers with a theoretical expansion of Schapery’s nonlinear viscoelastic model by incorporating two components of irrecoverable processes, displaying material flow and viscoplastic behavior (structure- and load-related irrecoverable process). The theory is accompanied by an experimental and analytical framework for identifying model parameters. Introduced multi-scale analysis allows evaluation of pure linear and nonlinear viscoelastic, as well as viscoplastic behavior, enabling the study of their contribution to overall material response. Model performance was examined with creep recovery tests on two versatile and well-established thermoplastic polymers with different morphological structures: amorphous ABS exhibiting notable flow and semi-crystalline POM, where flow may be neglected. Results show extremely accurate predictions and exceptional agreement with experimental data, as the error was found to be less than $5\mathrm{\%}$ ranging from infinitesimally small to relatively high loading magnitudes (from 0.1 to 15 MPa of shear stress) at $70°\mathrm{C}$ (maximum operating temperature). Notably, viscoplastic strains were detected even within linear viscoelastic domain, suggesting that these effects are not related to yield phenomena (associated with progressive/damaging mechanisms), but rather provide an explanation for the material’s inability to fully recover. With its predictive capability and adaptability, the model demonstrates to be a powerful tool for capturing realistic material responses not only for the considered but also applicable to other molecular systems.

The article reviews the know-why and the know-how of an invention based on the patented dissipative granular high-pressure technology. It was found that by proper selection of damping material and hydrostatic pressure to which material is exposed during the loading, one can match material maximum damping properties with the frequency or rate of the applied loading. In this way one can fully utilize damping characteristics of the selected material and maximize the energy absorption properties of a damper. Using this unique potential of the dissipative granular high-pressure technology one can build ultimate damping elements that surpass the existing damping elements for sever orders of magnitude. Applications of such damping elements include for instance supports for industrial machines to damp vibrations, fundaments in building constructions to reduce susceptibility to earthquake damage and resonance, as well as trains and railway tracks to reduce vibration during travel, and to improve passive car safety in road transportation. This article reviews phenomenological description of the time-dependent response of polymeric material when excited by impact- or vibrational loading needed in development of the new generation impactand vibration isolation.