Construction and Building Materials 44 (2013) 81–86

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Construction and Building Materials

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/conbuildmat

Physical and mechanical properties of mortar using waste Polyethylene

Terephthalate bottles
Zhi Ge a, Renjuan Sun a, Kun Zhang a,⇑, Zhili Gao b, Pengcheng Li a
a
Department of Transportation Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China
b
Department of Construction Management and Engineering, College of Engineering and Architecture, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58108, USA

h i g h l i g h t s

 Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) bottles were used as binder to produce plastic mortar.
 Effects of gradation, sand-to-PET ratio, and curing time and temperature on compressive strength of mortar were studied.
 Plastic mortar with continuously graded sand had higher compressive strength. The optimal sand-to-PET ratio was 3:1.
 Mortar obtained over 90% of its 7-day strength within 3 h.
 Mortar cured under higher temperature gained high compressive strength.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This paper studied the effects of aggregate gradation, sand-to-Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) ratio, and
Received 23 February 2012 curing conditions on physical and mechanical properties of recycled PET mortar. Infrared Spectrum test
Received in revised form 10 January 2013 was performed to investigate the mechanism of strength development. Test results indicated that recy-
Accepted 26 February 2013
cled PET mortar with continuously graded sand exhibited higher strength compared with mortar with
Available online 9 April 2013
single-sized gradation. As the sand-to-PET ratio increased, the compressive and flexural strength of recy-
cled PET mortar increased. Compressive strength could reach 30 MPa within 3 h, which was over 90% of
Keywords:
its 7-day strength. Samples cured under higher temperature had higher strength compared with speci-
Recycled Polyethylene Terephthalate bottle
Recycled PET mortar
mens cured under low temperature. The curing time did not significantly influence the strength develop-
Compressive strength ment. Infrared Spectrum test showed that more crystal was formed under higher curing temperature.
Flexural strength This study reveals an innovative, easily implemented method to create a new mortar material by recy-
Infrared Spectrum cling waste PET bottles.
Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) is widely used in beverage
containers and other products. As the beverage consumption
increases rapidly in China, the amount of waste PET bottles
increases exponentially. For example, 6 billion PET bottles were
discarded in 2009 in Beijing alone to create 150 thousand tons of
PET waste [1]. The volume of waste is only one problem. The
improper disposal of post-consumer PET raises environmental
issues because PET is not biodegradable [2]. Also the gases
produced by incinerating PET cause air pollution and public health
concerns. Thus, one of the logical methods to address PET waste is
to recycle it for industrial use [3]. Research related to converting
waste PET bottles into construction material has been conducted
worldwide [4].
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 13656407376.
E-mail address: zhangkun-sdu@hotmail.com (K. Zhang).
To date, three major ways have been identified to recycle waste
PET bottles into construction materials. First, waste PET bottles can
be depolymerized into unsaturated polyester resin to produce
polymer mortar and polymer concrete [5–8]. Benefits include that
polymer concrete has higher compressive and flexural strength
than conventional Portland cement concrete [9], and that polymer
concrete achieves over 80% of its ultimate strength within 1 day
[5]. However, the properties of polymer concrete are sensitive
and subjected to temperature and the cost of producing polymer
concrete from waste plastic is high [2,3,5].
The second method is to use PET fiber to reinforce concrete. The
use of PET fiber can enhance the ductility of quasi-brittle concrete
and, therefore, reduce the cracking caused by plastic shrinkage
[10–12]. However, the water-resistance and low surface energy
of plastic materials result in a weak mechanical bond between
the fiber and the cement matrix [4,13]. Poor mechanical bond
strength may cause internal micro-cracks in the interfacial
mechanical bond area between the fiber and the cement matrix

0950-0618/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.conbuildmat.2013.02.073
82 Z. Ge et al. / Construction and Building Materials 44 (2013) 81–86
[14]. Moreover, this method only recycles a small quantity of plas-
tic waste because the volume of fiber in fiber-reinforced concrete is
between 0.3% and 1.5% [3].
The third recycling method is to substitute PET waste for a
portion of the aggregate used in the production of lightweight
concrete or asphalt concrete [2,3,15–19]. This method provides
the most economical way to accomplish two important goals: to
dispose of waste plastic and to produce lightweight concrete
[3,20]. However, the addition of PET waste negatively affected
the quality of the concrete by decreasing its compressive strength,
splitting tensile strength, and modulus of elasticity [18,19,21].
Recently, a fourth method has been attempted: recycled PET
bottle flakes are directly used as binder. Khoury et al. heated and
mixed recycled plastic bottles with two types of soil, clay and sand,
to attain a uniform fused mix named plastic-soil [22]. Ge et al.
recycled PET bottles to produce recycled PET mortar, and the
results are promising [23]. However, more research is need.
The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of aggregate
gradation, sand-to-PET ratio and curing conditions on physical and
mechanical properties of recycled PET mortar, specifically bulk den-
sity, water absorption, compressive strength, and flexural strength.
The developed recycled PET mortar could be potentially used as ra-
pid patching material for asphalt pavement. Also, since the water
absorption of recycled PET mortar is low, it may be used in corrosive
environmental due to its durability and anti-corrodibility.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Materials
Two types of aggregate were used in the experiment: natural river sand and
limestone powder as mineral filler. The physical properties of sand are shown in
Table 1. The maximum size of sand was 4.75 mm. Limestone powder with size
smaller than 0.075 mm was used to form a continuous aggregate gradation. The
amount of limestone powder was 7.5% of the total aggregate.
Table 1
Physical properties of sand.
Properties Value
Bulk density (g/cm3) 2.40
Water absorption (%) 2.76
Max size (mm) 4.75
Fig. 1. Size and shape of PET flakes.
Table 2
Aggregate gradation.
Sieve size (mm) 9.5 4.75
Accumulated percentage passing (%) 100 95
Discarded PET bottles were collected and shredded into flakes. Bottle caps and
label papers were removed in order to obtain only PET material. Fig. 1 shows the
size and shape of PET used in this experiment.
2.2. Mix design
Variables were divided into four groups: (1) type of aggregate gradation, (2)
sand-to-PET ratio (by weight), (3) curing time, and (4) curing temperature. For
aggregate gradation, two single-sized (1.18 mm and 2.36 mm) and one continu-
ously graded aggregate were used to produce recycled PET mortar. The continuous
gradation curve, shown in Table 2, was determined according to the gradation curve
of AC-5 in the Chinese Standard [24]. The sand-to-PET ratio used in the mixture was
1:1, 2:1, 3:1, and 4:1. When the effect of curing time was investigated, the speci-
mens were cured at room temperature and demolded at 3 h, 6 h, 18 h, 24 h and
7 day, respectively. The effect of three different curing temperature, 100 °C,
140 °C, and 180 °C, was studied. For each curing temperature, samples were cured
in the preheated oven for 30-min immediately after mixing and compaction, and
then placed at room temperature for a total curing time of 24 h.
2.3. Specimen’s preparation
After drying at the temperature of 110 °C to remove the moisture, sand was
weighted according to mix design, and then heated with the PET flakes at 280–
290 °C for approximately 40 min. After that, mixture was manually mixed in con-
tainer using stainless steel spoon to attain a uniform mixture. After mixing, the mix-
ture was poured into a mold that had been pre-heated at 180 °C for 1 h and
compacted to produce specimens of recycled PET mortar. Normally, the specimens
were demolded after 24 h at room temperature and cured in the room condition un-
til the test.
2.4. Experimental methods
Infrared Spectrum Analysis was conducted to measure the main functional
groups and the amount of crystal. The tests were conducted using VERTEX-70 FT-
IR spectrometers (BRUKER OPTICS). The powder of PET was ground with potassium
bromide, and then pressed into a thin film. The scanned absorption bands ranged
from 400 cm 1 to 4000 cm 1.
Differential Scanning Calorimetric (DSC) analysis was conducted to determine
the melting point of PET. DSC was performed with SDTQ 600 (TA Instruments) un-
der nitrogen atmosphere with a flow rate of 50 ml/min; the heating rate was con-
trolled at 10 °C/min, and the sample mass was 4.5 mg.
Bulk density (qf) and water absorption (Sa) of recycled PET mortar were tested
according to the Chinese Standard T 0705-2000 [25].
The compressive and flexural strengths of the recycled PET mortar specimens
were measured according to Chinese Standard T 0570-2005 and T 0506-2005
[26]. The size of specimens for the compressive strength test was
50  50  50 mm. The tests were carried out by using the Microcomputer Con-
trolled Electronic Universal Testing Machine under force control at the rate of
0.5 kN/s until its failure.
Prisms of 40  40  160 mm were cast for the flexural strength test. The flex-
ural strength tests were performed on the prismatic specimens by the three points
loading test under force controlled at the rate of 0.04 kN/s until its failure. Fig. 2
shows the specimens for compressive and flexural strength tests.
All testing measurements were obtained from three samples. The average of
these three samples is presented and discussed in the next section.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Physical properties of PET and recycled PET mortar
Fig. 3 shows the Infrared Spectrum of raw PET. The band at
1722.10 cm 1 is assigned to carbonyl C@O stretching; 1411.18
cm 1 is assigned to aromatic skeletal stretching; 1262.00 cm 1 is as-
signed to C(O)AO stretching of the ester group; 873.35 and
725.42 cm 1 are assigned to the coupled vibrations of the aromatic
out-of-plane CAH bending mode and the out-of-plane O@CAO
bending mode. The results clearly indicate that the material of bottle
flake is PET. Fig. 4 shows a melt endotherm peak around 250 °C,
2.36 1.18 0.6 0.3 0.15 0.075
65 45 30 20 12.5 7.5
 Z. Ge et al. / Construction and Building Materials 44 (2013) 81–86 83

Fig. 2. Photographs of cubic and prismatic samples.

Fig. 3. Infrared Spectrum of raw PET.

Table 3
Physical properties of recycled PET mortar.

Properties Sand-to-PET ratio

2:1 3:1
Bulk density (g/cm3) 1.93 2.02
Water absorption (%) 0.34 0.70

3.2. Compressive strength

The relationship between compressive strength and aggregate

Fig. 4. DSC curve of PET.
which is the melting point of PET. The density and water absorption
of PET were 1.35 g/cm3 and 0.16%, respectively.
The water absorption and bulk density of different mixtures are
given in Table 3. The results show that the bulk density and water
absorption increased as the sand-to-PET ratio increased. The recy-
cled PET mortar had low water absorption rates with values of only
0.34% and 0.70% for mortar with the sand-to-PET ratio of 2:1 and
3:1. The bulk density increased from 1.93 g/cm3 to 2.02 g/cm3 as
the sand-to-PET ratio increased from 2 to 3.
gradation is shown in Fig. 5. Notably, the recycled PET mortar using
single-sized sand as aggregate had lower compressive strength
than the recycled PET mortar using continuously graded sand,
and the compressive strength of recycled PET mortar with
1.18 mm single-sized sand was nearly the same as that of recycled
PET mortar with 2.36 mm single-sized sand. In recycled PET mortar
with continuously graded sand, small particles could fill the voids
between the big particles, which would lower porosity and there-
fore, increase the compressive strength of recycled PET mortar,
which agrees with previous studies on cement mortar [27].
Moreover, Fig. 6 shows that as sand-to-PET ratio increased,
compressive strength increased. When the sand-to-PET ratio of
the recycled PET mortar increased from 1:1 to 2:1, the compressive
strength of recycled PET mortar increased by 56.6%. The mortar
with a sand-to-PET ratio of 4:1 reached the highest strength of
84 Z. Ge et al. / Construction and Building Materials 44 (2013) 81–86

Compressive strength (MPa)

40
35 32.0 32.7 32.7
29.9 29.6
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
3h 6h 18h 24h 7d
Curing time
Fig. 5. Relationship between compressive strength and types of aggregate grada-
tion (sand-to-PET ratio = 2:1). Fig. 7. Relationship between compressive strength and curing time (sand-to-PET
ratio = 3:1).

Fig. 6. Relationship between compressive strength and sand-to-PET ratio.

Fig. 8. Relationship between compressive strength and curing temperature (sand-

35.7 MPa. However, through visual observation, this mortar had
to-PET ratio = 3:1).
the lowest flow ability among the specimens and was difficult to
compact when preparing specimens. Therefore, the optimum
sand-to-PET ratio was controlled between 2:1 and 3:1 in almost
all of the follow-up tests. One of the possible reasons for the
strength degradation along with the reduction of sand-to-PET ratio
was that the linear temperature expansion coefficient of PET was
much higher than that of sand [28]. Therefore, the PET and sand
showed different temperature shrinkage as the melted recycled
PET mortar cooled to room temperature, which could result in in-
ner stress and micro-cracks between sand and PET to affect com-
pressive strength. The greater the amount of PET, the greater the
difference in the deformation between PET and sand is.
The relationship between the compressive strength and curing
time is shown in Fig. 7. It is worth noting that recycled PET mortar
typically achieved over 90% of its 7-day compressive strength
within 3 h. This characteristic was mainly attributed to the rapid
transformation of PET from a liquid state to a solid state at room
temperature. From 3 h to 6 h, the compressive strength of recycled
PET mortar was almost the same. From 6 h to 18 h, the compres-
sive strength of recycled PET mortar only increased by 8.1%. At Fig. 9. Infrared Spectrum of PET cured under different temperatures.
24 h, the compressive strength was the same as its 7-day strength.
Another finding was that as curing temperature increased, the
compressive strength increased as shown in Fig. 8. Recycled PET
mortar cured at 180 °C for 30 min exhibited a compressive
strength of 34.9 MPa, which is 6.7% higher than that of recycled
PET mortar cured directly at room temperature. One of the reasons
is that the curing temperature could affect the amount of crystal in
the harden PET. As the amount of crystal increases, the hardness of
PET increases [29]. The band at 898 cm 1of Infrared Spectrum test
can be used to measure the amorphous content of PET, and the
amount of crystal can be inferred from the amorphous content
based on the assumption that the amorphous and crystalline mate-
rials alone comprise the total sample [30]. Thus, as shown in Fig. 9,
PET that is first cured at 180 °C for 30 min had higher value at
898 cm 1 than PET cured at 110 °C or room temperature, which Fig. 10. Stress–strain curve of recycled PET mortar with sand-to-PET ratio of 3:1
indicates that higher percent of crystal was formed under high and 2:1.
 Z. Ge et al. / Construction and Building Materials 44 (2013) 81–86
Fig. 11. Relationship between flexural strength and sand-to-PET ratio.
temperature curing. The growth trend of compressive strength is in
accordance with the increase of crystallinity of PET formed during
the cooling process.
3.3. Stress–strain behavior
Fig. 10 shows the stress–strain curves of recycled PET mortar
with continuously graded sand and a sand-to-PET ratio of 3:1
and 2:1. It can be noted that the initial slope of the curves (moduli)
and the maximum stresses attained by the recycled PET mortar
with a sand-to-PET ratio of 3:1 were slightly steeper and higher
than those of recycled PET mortar with a sand-to-PET ratio of
2:1. However, the strain at peak compressive stress and the ulti-
mate strain of recycled PET mortar with a sand-to-PET ratio of
3:1 were lower than those of recycled PET mortar with sand-to-
PET ratio of 2:1. The post-peak stress of the recycled PET mortar
with a sand-to-PET ratio of 3:1 dropped faster than that of the
recycled PET mortar with a sand-to-PET ratio of 2:1, resulting in
a smaller post-peak area.
3.4. Flexural strength
The results of flexural strengths of recycled PET mortar are
shown in Fig. 11. It can be seen that the flexural strengths of recy-
cled PET mortar with sand-to-PET ratios of 3:1 and 2:1 were
7.19 MPa and 5.56 MPa at 1 day. Compared to recycled PET mortar
with a sand-to-PET ratio of 2:1, the flexural strength of recycled
PET mortar with a sand-to-PET ration of 3:1 showed an increase
of 29.3%. This trend was similar to that of compressive strength.
4. Conclusions
In this paper, waste PET bottles were melted and mixed with
sand to produce recycled PET mortar. The study showed encourag-
ing results and established a new alternative for recycling waste
PET bottles in a simple and effective way. The main conclusions
that can be drawn from this study are as follows:
1. As sand-to-PET ratio increased, the density and water absorption
of the recycled PET mortar increased. However, all of the recycled
PET mortars had a relatively low level of water absorption.
2. Recycled PET mortar with continuously graded sand exhibited a
higher compressive strength value than that of recycled PET
mortar with single-sized sand. With increase in the sand-to-
PET ratio, the compressive strength of the recycled PET mortar
also increased. However, recycled PET mortar with a sand-to-
PET ratio of 4:1 had a lower flow ability that made compaction
difficult. Within 3 h, recycled PET mortar with a sand-to-PET
ratio of 3:1 attained over 90% of its 7-day strength. The higher
the curing temperature, the higher the amount of crystal
85
formed during the curing process and the higher the compres-
sive strength of the recycled PET mortar.
3. The flexural strength of recycled PET mortar with a sand-to-PET
ratio of 3:1 was higher than that of mortar with a 2:1 ratio. This
trend was similar to the compressive strength of recycled PET
mortar; therefore, the optimum sand-to-PET ratio was 3:1.
Acknowledgments
This study is supported by Independent Innovation Foundation
of Shandong University, IIFSDU (2009TB012). The authors would
like to express their gratitude to the lab facilities in the School of
Civil Engineering, Shandong University, for supporting this re-
search project. Sincere acknowledgements are also given to Li
Zheng and Tong Lin for their great help in the lab.
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