Dynamic Mechanical Analysis of Synthetic epoxy (E) and Bio-epoxy Polymer Foam Integrated with Wood Filler Under 8000 hours Exposure to UV Irradiation

Abstract

The most common sustainable polymer for polyurethane (PU) materials is the production of polyurethane (PU) materials using renewable resources, which will reduce thedependency on petroleum-based products for consumption.This research presents findings from an experimental research on dynamic mechanical and viscoelastic properties such as storage module (E'), loss module(E") and damping coefficient(tan δ)of synthetic epoxy (E) and bio-epoxy (B) polymer foam with different loading ratios of 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% flakes and powder filler.The samples were then exposed to 8000 hours of UV irradiation. The samples were subjected to dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) over a temperature range of 25-180 ° C for (E) and (B) polymer foam at a frequency of 1 Hz.The results showed that the 20 %synthetic epoxy with flakes filler material, namely as E20L sample with the highest filler ratio, gives the maximum storage module and loss module values (0.3125 MPa and0.0625 MPa respectively), among other filler ratios due to bonding between foam and filler resulting in increased viscosity of the synthetic-epoxy PU foam. The bio-epoxy PU foam with a 5% powder filler material (B5P), has the highest storage value (3,956 MPa) and loss module (17,213 MPa), showing that bio-epoxy PU foams can dissipate energy faster than synthetic-epoxy polymer foams.Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) showed that the synthetic epoxy (E) polymer foam had a higher Tg value and the highest value was reported by E5L (1.2) compared to bio-epoxy foams with far less repeatable results due to the less homogeneous polyol structure.