Least plastic smell 3

[kris1447]

I am the owner of a weighted blanket business (used in treating Sensory Processing Disorders...common with Autism). I am not an engineer, so please forgive any inconsistencies in my question.

I have been using underwater processed PE pellets from a plastics recycling plant as weighting material in my blankets, but each lot of beads that I buy has a distinct odor that is often offensive to my clients...and each lot smells different from the last lot. I am wondering if I would be better off using PP? Would Virgin Plastic rather than reprocessed have less of an odor? I know that there are a gazillion combinations...I believe that most of the lots I've been buying have had the label LDPE (or something like that). Is there a different PE combination that I should ask for to achieve less of an odor?

Thank you in advance for any advice you may have to share.

Kristi

 

[kris1447]

For the record, I am 'the wife'. Kris is short for Kristi.

Compositepro, in your experience, once I steam strip the beads to the point of being relatively odorless, should I expect the odor to stay away, or is that just a temporary fix?

Kristi

 

[patprimmer]

It depends on whether the odour causing substance has been compounded into granules or is just sitting on the surface or has it diffused into the granule.

Vacuum certainly accelerates the removal of volatiles greatly, and heating under vacuum greatly reduces the oxidation of the polymer due to heat aging.

If odour causing substances are distributed through the matrix of the granule, they will be hard to remove as diffusion to the surface is often slow.

Buy new virgin appropriate grade of material and sleep at night.

I know most reputable suppliers make non or low tainting grades for use in things like cookware and electric kettles.

Regards
Pat
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[kris1447]

"Buy new virgin appropriate grade of material and sleep at night."

Good advice. I'm working toward that for sure. I got an email late this afternoon from the recycling plant that has been supplying me this past year, and they have offered to take back all of my current beads in exchange for new beads that are more acceptable for my purposes. I noticed on their website that they sometimes deal in virgin PE, so I'll see if they have any currently available that I could credit my current beads toward an upgrade purchase.

Also, one of the sources that Chris mentioned has connected me with a supplier that might be able to source me with virgin PE by the ton rather than by the truckload. (Thank you again, Chris).

Smiles.

Kristi

 

[Demon3]

You're very welcome! We all like to help when we can!

Chris DeArmitt - PhD FRSC CChem
Plastic & Additives Webinars
Instant Downloads & Inexpensive

http://www.plastictraining.com

 

[btrueblood]

You'd be surprised, we have a shop vac here at work that will pull more than 1/2 an atmosphere. The level of vacuum is less important than the repeating of the dry/rinse cycle.

 

[pierdesign]

It's an interesting situation. Any update?

What's interesting is that autistic's are sensing this odour and reacting negatively to it.

You describe washing and drying the blankets. Forced air convection dryers get quite hot and can affect some polymers. Also, if they are gas fired dryers and don't have perfect combustion could objectionable aromatics be introduced this way? Also, to really harp on this, forced air convection tumble drying creates both static charge and carbon monoxide. Could either be inducing this negative sensing reaction?

Pardon me if I'm second guessing you, but could other synthetic fibers in the blanket fabrics' construction be another target?

 

[kris1447]

Hi, pierdesign,

I'm pretty sure it is the plastic pellets themselves that had the odor because I could smell the chemical smell each time I used them. Update: The recycling plant from which I bought the smelly pellets invited me to bring them back and they gave me an even trade on virgin beads. While there, I also picked up a second pallet of virgin PE pellets. I absolutely LOVE my new pellets. They have virtually no odor and therefore require no preparation before using them in the blankets. Woohoo! I will use virgin beads from now on.

Thank you again to everyone for all the fantastic advice. I learned a lot from this board.

Kristi