Technological and Thermal Properties of Thermoplastic Composites Filled with Heat-treated Alder Wood

Abstract

This study investigated the effect of heat-treated wood content on the water absorption, mechanical, and thermal properties of wood plastic composites (WPCs). The WPCs were produced from various loadings (30, 40, and 50 wt%) of heat-treated and untreated alder wood flours (Alnus glutinosa L.) using high-density polyethylene (HDPE) with 3 wt% maleated polyethylene (MAPE) coupling agent. All WPC formulations were compression molded into a hot press for 3 min at 170 ºC. The WPCs were evaluated using mechanical testing, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The mechanical property values of the WPC specimens decreased with increasing amounts of the heattreated wood flour, except for the tensile modulus values. The heat treatment of alder wood slightly increased the thermal stability of the WPCs compared with the reference WPCs. The crystallization degree (Xc) and the enthalpy of crystallization of the WPCs slightly decreased with increasing content of the heat-treated wood flour. However, all WPCs containing the heat-treated alder wood flour showed a higher crystallinity degree than that of the virgin HDPE.

Properties of Honeycomb Paperboards Faced with Heat-Treated Thin Medium-Density Fiberboards

“…In addition, the depolymerization and shortening of the cellulose polymer decrease the MOE and MOR of wood, which reduce the flexural properties of the wood (Sweet and Winandy 1999). Similar results have been observed in previous studies (Ayrilmis et al 2009;Wahyu et al 2015;Tufan et al 2016). The significant differences (p < 0.01) in the flexural strength and flexural modulus values are shown as different letters in Table 3.…”

Potential Use of Hazelnut Husk in Recycled High-Density Polyethylene Composites

“…The use of coupling agent enhanced the fiber-matrix interaction thus increasing the brittleness of the composite. Similar findings were reported in other studies (Tascioglu et al 2014;Tufan et al 2016). …”

“…For example, the flexural strength values of the composites without the coupling agent decreased by 55.4% as the hazelnut husk flour content was increased from 30 wt.% to 60 wt.%. The poor adhesion between the fillers and the polymer matrix was the main reason for the poor flexural strength (Tufan et al 2016). The weak interfacial regions result in the reduction in the efficiency of stress transfer from the matrix to the reinforcement component (Ayrilmis et al 2013).…”

Rheological behavior of high‐density polyethylene (HDPE) filled with paper mill sludge

“…The thermal behavior of the sludge‐filled HDPE blend was investigated using DSC (Table ). The crystallinity ( X c ) was determined using the following equation: where Δ H exp is the experimental heat of crystallization, Δ H is the heat of crystallization for the HDPE, assumed at 293 J g −1 , and W f is the weight fraction of the HDPE in the sludge‐filled blend …”