Western Electric Company, Inc.

Vicky Williams Boehm

Barret Broyde

Recompoundable polyvinyl chloride suitable for reuse, for example, in cable and wire production is recovered from a scrap material which includes plasticized polyvinyl chloride. A charge of plasticized polyvinyl chloride scrap material is treated with a solvent to form a solvent mixture with one component thereof being a solvent solution of dissolved vinyl chloride polymer and plasticizers. The mixture is heated and agitated and scrap metal and other gross solids, if present, are removed. Then the solvent mixture is treated with an acid which advantageously causes a flocculation of suspended insolubles such as pigments and fillers. Except when using cyclohexanone as the solvent, the treatment with the acid must be accomplished, unexpectedly, in the presence of an additional flocculating agent. Suitable floccuating agents include liquid monomeric esters, which are effective only for cable and wire scrap, polystyrene, polymethyl methacrylate, poly (vinyl isobutyl ether), polyvinyl acetate and ethylene vinyl acetate, the latter acetate being effective only for scrap plastic such as extruder purgings.

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Atlanta, GA, United States of America

Vicky Williams Boehm