Study of the Effect of Accelerated Aging by Sea Water on the Mechanical and Chemical Properties of High Density Polyethylene Bottles

The increase of plastic waste in the marine environment has several ecological, human and marine biota problems. In this paper, an accelerated artificial ageing study in seawater was performed, after immersion of samples extracted from high density polyethylene bottles for several ageing times and under two different temperatures. The degradation of the mechanical properties of HDPE at different ageing conditions was studied using static tensile and compression tests. The absorption of seawater by the samples is analyzed by a gravimetric procedure, and Fourier transform infrared spectrometry (FTIR). A further surface analysis of the samples during accelerated ageing was shown by scanning electron microscope SEM. The results obtained show that the high density polyethylene loses its ductility and changes from ductile to brittle failure. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry (FTIR) analysis shows an increase in crystallinity over the ageing period.