Ramon Mujal-Rosas

Dr. Ramon Mujal-Rosas

orcid

Research Focus & Metrics

Academic Career Length

20Years (2007-Present)

(Calculated once Scilit publication data is synced: current year − year of first publication + 1)

Representative Publications

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8 April 2011 in Journal of Reinforced Plastics and Composites
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
RMR. Mujal-Rosas
R. Mujal-Rosas
JOJ. Orrit-Prat
J. Orrit-Prat
XRXavier Ramis
Xavier Ramis
Marc Marin-GenescàMarc Marin-Genescà
Marc Marin-Genescà
ARAhmed Rahhali
Ahmed Rahhali
Mass production of tires, as well as the difficult storage or elimination is a real environmental problem. Various methods for recycling tires are currently used, such as mechanical grinding, which puts vulcanized rubber, steel, and fibers apart. The rubber may be used in several industrial applications such as flooring, insulations, footwear, etc. The aim of this article focuses on finding a new application for the old used tires (GTR). Tire dust and recycled EVA thermoplastic have been mixed, and we have checked the maximum accepted values of GTR concentration that can be admitted while keeping dielectric, mechanical, and thermal properties within acceptable values, as well as initial polymer microstructure. This would allow including GTR in industrial applications of recycled EVA. The recycled tire dust which result from the industrial milling processes has been divided by sieve in three different categories according to the size of the particles (" xbd="654" xhg="622" ybd="1596" yhg="1560"/>500 µm). This has then been mixed with EVA in different GTR concentrations (0%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 40%, and 70%) in order to establish its conduct through electrical, mechanical, thermal, and microstructure tests, which will be held in a range of temperatures between 30°C and 120°C, and with a range of frequency between 1 × 10-2 and 3 × 106 Hz.

27 October 2010 in Journal of Composite Materials
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
JOJ. Orrit-Prat
J. Orrit-Prat
RMR. Mujal-Rosas
R. Mujal-Rosas
ARA. Rahhali
A. Rahhali
Marc Marin-GenescàMarc Marin-Genescà
Marc Marin-Genescà
Xavier ColomXavier Colom
Xavier Colom
JBJ. Belana-Punseti
J. Belana-Punseti
The mass manufacture of tires and the difficulty for their elimination or storage constitutes a serious environmental problem. At present, several methods for the recycling of tires are used, such as mechanical crushing, in which the steel vulcanized rubber and the fibers are separated; this rubber is being used in numerous applications like pavements, insulators, footwear, etc. This study proposes a second option for obsolete tires, demonstrating their utility as dielectrics. In order to do so, ground tire rubber (GTR) has been combined with polyvinyl chloride (PVC), to obtain a composite of a polymeric matrix reinforced with GTR. In order to determine the behavior of this composite material, the electrical and mechanical tests are presented as well as, more briefly, microstructure and thermal analyses, undertaken for the various mixtures of PVC with GTR (concentrations of 0%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 40%, 50%, and 70% GTR), and three GTR particle size categories (500 μm), in a range of temperatures that varied from 30° C to 130° C, and with frequencies from between 1 × 10-2 Hz and 3 × 106 Hz. The dielectric tests have allowed for an analysis of dielectric constant, dielectric loss factor, dielectric modulus, etc. On the other hand, the mechanical analysis has involved the Young’s modulus, tensile strength, elongation at break, and toughness. Mechanical and dielectric results point out that below 20% of GTR the material features for mechanical or electrical applications are not significantly altered.

8 May 2020 in Polymers
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
Marc Marin-GenescàMarc Marin-Genescà
Marc Marin-Genescà
Jordi Garcia AmorosJordi Garcia Amoros
Jordi Garcia Amoros
RMR. Mujal-Rosas
R. Mujal-Rosas
LMLluís Massagués
Lluís Massagués
Xavier ColomXavier Colom
Xavier Colom
The waste rubber vulcanizate, on account of its stable, cross-linked and three-dimensional structural arrangement, is difficult to biodegrade. Thus, the ever-increasing bulk of worn-out tires is a serious environmental issue and its safe disposal is still a challenging task reported widely by the scientific community. The rubber materials, once they end their useful life, may present difficulties to be reused or recycled. At present, only one tire recycling method is used, which involves grinding and separating steel and fibers from vulcanized rubber, and then using rubber for industrial applications, such as flooring, insulation, footwear. In this paper, a new compound material is presented from a base of reused tire powder (Ground Tire Rubber: GTR) as a mixer and linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) as a matrix. The reused tire powder, resulting from grinding industrial processes, is separated by sieving into just one category of particle size (<200 μm) and mixed with the LLDPE in different amounts (0%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 40%, 50% and 70% GTR). Due to the good electrical properties of the LLDPE, this study’s focus is settled on the electrical behavior of the obtained composites. The test of the dielectric behavior is carried out by means of DEA test (Dynamic Electric Analysis), undertaken at a range of temperatures varying from 30 to 120 °C, and with a range of frequencies from 1 to 102, to 3·106 Hz, from which permittivity, conductivity, dielectric constant and electric modulus have been obtained. From these experimental results and their analysis, it can be drawn that the additions of different quantities of GTR to LLDPE could be used as industrial applications, such as universal electrical cable joint, filler for electrical applications or cable tray systems and cable ladder system.

8 July 2011 in Journal of Thermoplastic Composite Materials
Verified
Journal Article
Closed access
PDF file
RMR. Mujal-Rosas
R. Mujal-Rosas
Marc Marin-GenescàMarc Marin-Genescà
Marc Marin-Genescà
JOJ Orrit-Prat
J Orrit-Prat
ARAhmed Rahhali
Ahmed Rahhali
XCX Colom-Fajula
X Colom-Fajula
The mass manufacture of tires and the difficulty in storing or disposing them constitute a serious environmental problem. At present, various recycling methods for tires are used, such as grinding, which separates the steel and fibers from the vulcanized rubber, then using the rubber in numerous industrial applications such as pavements, insulators, footwear, etc. The aim of this article focuses on finding a new application for the ground tire rubber (GTR). This would allow including GTR in industrial applications of recycled high-density polythene (HDPE). Tire dust and HDPE thermoplastic have been mixed, and the maximum accepted values of GTR concentration that can be admitted while keeping dielectric, mechanical, and thermal properties within acceptable values, as well as initial polymer microstructure, have been checked. In addition, the suitability of the compounds for antistatic applications is studied. The recycled tire dust which results from the industrial milling processes has been divided by sieve in three different categories according to the size of the particles (500 µm). This has then been mixed with HDPE in different GTR concentrations (0%, 5%, 10%, 20%, 40%, 50%, and 70%) in order to establish its conduct through electrical, mechanical, thermal, and microstructure tests, which will be held in a temperature range 30–120°C, and with a frequency range 1 × 10−2 and 3 × 106 Hz. The thermal tests determined the enthalpies and fusion temperatures which allow for the observation of changes in crystalline and microstructure of the matrix, and finally, the fracture surfaces of the compound samples have been evaluated using scanning electron microscopy.

7 January 2014 in Science and Engineering of Composite Materials
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
RMR. Mujal-Rosas
R. Mujal-Rosas
Marc Marin-GenescàMarc Marin-Genescà
Marc Marin-Genescà
JBJordi Ballart-Prunell
Jordi Ballart-Prunell
Mass production of tires as well as its difficult storage or elimination is a real environmental problem. Various methods for recycling tires are currently used, such as mechanical crushing, which puts vulcanized rubber, steel, and fibers apart. The rubber may be used in several industrial applications such as flooring, insulations, and footwear. The present paper focuses on finding a new application for old used tires [ground tire rubber (GTR)]. To this end, tires dust has been mixed with various thermoplastic polymers such as polyvinyl chloride (PVC), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), and polypropylene (PP). We have checked the maximum GTR concentration values admitted by these compounds while keeping dielectric properties within acceptable values and therefore remaining suitable for industrial applications in the manufacturing of insulators for electrical wires. In particular, tires dust with particles size p<200 μm has been mixed with the polymers in four different GTR concentrations of 5%, 10%, 20%, and 50% to establish its performance through dielectric tests performed within a range of temperatures from 30°C to 120°C, and with frequencies from 1×10 -2 to 3×10 6 Hz, and analyzing conductivity, permittivity, dielectric loss factor, and relaxations. At last, the fracture surfaces of the composite samples have been evaluated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

2 August 2020 in Recycling
Verified
Journal Article
Open access
PDF file
Marc Marin-GenescàMarc Marin-Genescà
Marc Marin-Genescà
Jordi Garcia AmorosJordi Garcia Amoros
Jordi Garcia Amoros
RMR. Mujal-Rosas
R. Mujal-Rosas
LVLluís Massagués Vidal
Lluís Massagués Vidal
JAJordi Bordes Arroyo
Jordi Bordes Arroyo
Xavier ColomXavier Colom
Xavier Colom
In the present research, we investigated the conceivable outcomes of using ground tire rubber (GTR) particle polymeric blends. Special methods of restoring tires that are no longer in use include GTR retreading, GTR blending destined for recycling to attain raw substances utilized in other industrial application production processes, and the valorization of GTR for power/energy generation. The recycling of end-of-life tires enables the recovery of rubber, steel, and fibers, all of which are valid on the market as raw materials to be used for other processes. There are methods to recycle GTRs in a clean and environmentally friendly way. In the present research, several industrial applications of GTR polymer blends were developed and compared with standard values from the Spanish Association for Standardization (UNE) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). In order to analyze the viability in many of the industrial applications selected, certain compounds obtained from the GTR polymer blends were analyzed regarding their use in nine low requirement insulator applications. The research and analysis developed in this manuscript used standard values from the UNE and IEC, and these standard values were compared with the test values. The obtained results were used to provide an application list that could be helpful for industrial applications. In this research, the pre-owned polymers were as follows: polypropylene (PP), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), polystyrene (PS), acrylonitrile butadiene-styrene (ABS), ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), and polyamide (PA). The filler used was GTR with particle sizes lower than 200 microns. The amounts of GTR particles in the compound materials were 0% (raw polymer), 5%, 10%, 20%, 40%, 50%, and 70% (the latter being found in polymeric blends). We discovered six plausible modern applications of GTR polymer blends as indicated by the UNE and IEC standards.