Polypropylene composite reinforced with fibrillated curaua fiber and using maleic anhydride as coupling agent

Nacas, Amanda Martins; Silva, Roberto L.; Paoli, Marco; Spinacé, Márcia A. S.

doi:10.1002/app.44913

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…Maleic anhydride (MAH) grafted polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) are semi-crystalline polymers with a wide range of applications in industry [1,2], such as chemical coupling agents [3], impact modifiers [4], and reactive compatibilizer precursors [5] for blends. Maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene (PP-g-MAH) and maleic anhydride grafted polyethylene (PE-g-MAH) have received lots of attention due to their extensive use in improving the interfacial interaction between components in polymer blends and polymer composites in order to maximize physical properties [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crystallization, Structures, and Properties of Different Polyolefins with Similar Grafting Degree of Maleic Anhydride

et al. 2020

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Maleic anhydride (MAH) grafting to different polyolefins with similar grafting degree can have different effects on crystallization, crystal structure, and mechanical and thermal properties. The grafting leads to a smaller crystal size, less ordered lamellar structure, and a shorter long period for HDPE, LLDPE, and PP. The grafting makes PP lamellar packing less ordered the most and almost no effect to LLDPE. The grafting does not have that much impact on the crystallization ability of the HDPE, LLDPE, and HDPE/PP blend, but appreciably reduces the crystalline ability of PP-g-MAH, due to a dramatical drop in its molecular weight during the grafting process. As a result, the grafting makes PP a very brittle material with a lowered average melting point than the corresponding neat PP, but the grafting has almost no effect on elongation at break for LLDPE and some effect on HDPE (decreased by one-third). However, the PP degradation due to MAH grafting can be avoided in the presence of PE component, i.e., making the grafting of PP and PE at the same time with HDPE/PP blend. The grafted HDPE/PP blend shows a significantly improved compatibility, which leads to overall appreciably better mechanical properties than the neat HDPE/PP blend.Polymers 2020, 12, 675 2 of 13 slightly with addition of small amount of PP-g-MAH, while mechanical dampening decreased with addition of PP-g-MAH.It is well known that the degree of MAH grafting can have significant impact on the crystallization and structure of polyolefins. The melting temperature of HDPE-g-MAH decreases as increase in grafting content from 0.2% to 0.8%, [14] but increases with further increase in grafting degree. The crystallization, melting behavior and structures of PP with different maleic anhydride contents (AC = 0.5 mass%, 1 mass%, 3 mass%) was investigated by Menyhárd et al. [15] Liu et al. prepared and studied maleic anhydride/styrene-grafted PPR (polypropylene random copolymer) with grafting degrees of 1.38%, 2.25%, and 2.42%, respectively, and it is found that the crystallization rate of this MPP is higher than the neat PP and increases with the increase in grafting degree [16].Although there are quite a number of studies on MAH grafted polyolefins-including PP [15,16], high-density polyethylene (HDPE) [14], and linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE) [17]-the different effects of similar MAH grafting degree on crystallization, structures, and properties of different polyolefins have not been explored. In the present work, a series of MAH grafted polyolefins are studied, including maleic anhydride grafted high-density polyethylene (HDPE-g-MAH), maleic anhydride grafted low-density polyethylene (LLDPE-g-MAH), PP-g-MAH and maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene/maleic anhydride grafted high-density polyethylene (PP-g-MAH/HDPE-g-MAH) blends (1:1). The crystallization kinetics, thermal behavior, crystal structure, lamellar packing, and crystal size of these grafted polyolefins, together with the corresponding non-grafted polymers, are discussed, which provides a ...

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crystallization, Structures, and Properties of Different Polyolefins with Similar Grafting Degree of Maleic Anhydride

et al. 2020

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“…The authors blame this on a poor dispersion of the reinforcements in the composite. Nacas et al produced curauá-reinforced polypropylene composites [35]. These researchers used raw and fibrillated reinforcements and maleic anhydride as their coupling agent.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Explorative Study on the Use of Curauá Reinforced Polypropylene Composites for the Automotive Industry

et al. 2019

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The automotive industry is under a growing volume of regulations regarding environmental impact and component recycling. Nowadays, glass fiber-based composites are commodities in the automotive industry, but show limitations when recycled. Thus, attention is being devoted to alternative reinforcements like natural fibers. Curauá (Curacao, Ananas erectifolius) is reported in the literature as a promising source of natural fiber prone to be used as composite reinforcement. Nonetheless, one important challenge is to obtain properly dispersed materials, especially when the percentages of reinforcements are higher than 30 wt %. In this work, composite materials with curauá fiber contents ranging from 20 wt % to 50 wt % showed a linear positive evolution of its tensile strength and Young's modulus against reinforcement content. This is an indication of good reinforcement dispersion and of favorable stress transfer at the fiber-matrix interphase. A car door handle was used as a test case to assess the suitability of curauá-based composites to replace glass fiber-reinforced composites. The mechanical analysis and a preliminary lifecycle analysis are performed to prove such ability.The light-weighting of a vehicle can be achieved by design changes, modification of the construction processes or the use of light engineering materials [2,5]. In addition to the above-mentioned regulations, the automotive industry has also to fulfill new regulations related to the end of life of the vehicles. Such regulations, like the European Union (EU) End of Life Vehicle directive, restrict the amount of vehicle that can be landfilled at its disposal. This directive enforces recovering and reusing at least 95% of the vehicle [6,7].The automotive industry has explored alternatives to steel that provide the required mechanical properties while being lighter. These materials include metals like aluminum or magnesium, polymers like polyolefin, or composite materials like glass fiber or natural fiber-reinforced polymers. Moreover, alternative materials must show technical, economic and environmental performances [2].The use of natural fiber-reinforced polymers has caught the attention of automotive industry, due to certain reasons. On the one hand, natural fibers come from renewable resources, locally available and comparatively cheaper than mineral fibers [8][9][10]. On the other hand, natural fibers are lighter than glass fibers, and thus, natural fiber-reinforced materials tend to show higher specific properties [11]. Nowadays, the use of natural fiber-reinforced composites has increased [9]. These materials are used for globe boxes, door panels, seat coverings, seat surfaces, trunk panels, trunk floors, spare tire covers, insulation, headliners, or dashboards [9,12]. The use of natural fiber-reinforced composites has been limited to non-structural or semi-structural purposes, and usually as an alternative to glass fiber-reinforced materials [9,12,13]. The most common natural fibers used as reinforcement in the automotive industry are jute, ...

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“…The stress-strain behavior of many reinforced polymers or plastics can be changed by adhesion promoters and interfacial coupling agents (such as maleic anhydride) that alter adhesion and the nature of the matrix-load interface [38].…”

Section: The Use Of Polypropylene In a Composite Or Mixturementioning

confidence: 99%

Study of the Technical Feasibility of the Use of Polypropylene Residue in Composites for Automotive Industry

Dias¹,

Guimarães²,

Nascimento³

et al. 2019

Plastics in the Environment

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Polypropylene (PP) is widely used in short-term use artifacts, rapidly discarded and should partially replace neat PP. In addition, it is one of the polymers most used in the automobile industry. This study shows the technical feasibility of partially substituting neat PP for a post-consumer counterpart (PP r), as well as adding ground glass (GP), used as filler in the polymer matrix. Mechanical and thermal properties of the recycled blends (PP/PP r) and composites (PP/PP r /GP) were evaluated. The results demonstrated that the blend with the highest PP r content obtained a statistically significant decline in elastic modulus, but adding 5 wt% of GP to this blend increased this property, achieving a similar value in relation to neat PP. The composite developed may be a promising tailor-made product with properties resembling those of the virgin plastic. Thus, the automotive industry seems to be a good option for the use of PP r and GP composites and blends, without increasing product requirements.

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Polypropylene composite reinforced with fibrillated curaua fiber and using maleic anhydride as coupling agent

Cited by 8 publications

References 38 publications

Crystallization, Structures, and Properties of Different Polyolefins with Similar Grafting Degree of Maleic Anhydride

Crystallization, Structures, and Properties of Different Polyolefins with Similar Grafting Degree of Maleic Anhydride

Explorative Study on the Use of Curauá Reinforced Polypropylene Composites for the Automotive Industry

Study of the Technical Feasibility of the Use of Polypropylene Residue in Composites for Automotive Industry

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