Operando X-ray scattering during injection to develop an understanding of the limits to recycling in the fabrication of medical products

Many medical products are fabricated from semi-crystalline polymers using injection moulding. This work is a key part of project with a consortium of Companies in Marinha Grande  which is focused on increasing the circularity of plastic parts prepared by injection moulding.This proposal is focused on using the operando equipment designed and constructed at CDRSP [1-4] in the past two years which has been upgraded to allow the collection of time-resolved wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS) as well as small-angle X-Ray scattering (SAXS). The design is based on the experience gained in the previous beamtime allocations. The central focus of this project is the use of an industrially relevant injection moulding system which can be mounted on the ALBA NCD-SWEET beamline and which enables the time-resolved evaluation of the evolution of the structure and the morphology which accompanies the transformation from the molten state to the solid state of the injected plastic during a single injection moulding cycleto understand the changes induced by including recycled factory waste in the feedstock. The objective is to increase the circularity of the product.