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additives for recycled PET bottles

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RacingAZ

Structural
Apr 8, 2009
189
I'm developing an indoor fixture to be made of recycled PET bottles. One thing I noticed about PET bottles is that they get brittle and disintegrate after a number of years even without UV exposure. Is there an additive that can be used to mitigate this?
 
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they get brittle and disintegrate after a number of years even without UV exposure

And where did you see this phenomenon?

PET (without UV, which it is rather good at) should be good for several thousand years - hence the drive to recycle the stuff!

 
PET is excellent to UV light, but not so good as Acrylic or PTFE. It will noticably degrade if directly exposed for a decade or so if it is not coloured or stabilised in any way and if it is thin like a blown bottle or fibre. It is used for car seat belt webbing and for industrial slings because of its UV stability

Once it has fillers, or any UV opaque colours or any stabilisers, it can last many decades in direct sunlight.

You need to do your own homework re available stabilisers to meet your needs.

Regards
Pat
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Thanks for the replies. I've been out for a while.
 
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