Wood waste fibers (WWF) mostly known as wood flour, can replace mineral fillers such as talc, CaCO3 and fiberglass with great advantage. Wood-plastics composites (WPC’s) technology includes concepts of compatibility and processing and yet presents technical challenges in grade formulation and stabilisation of the composite system. Owing to thermal constraints in wood flour processing, commodities such as polyolefins (PP, PEAD/PEBD), styrenics (PS e HIPS) and vinyls (PVC) represent the bulk of the thermoplastics used in WPC’s applications. In the present work, a brief overview of the latest developments in WPC’s processing technology is discussed in the light of technical characteristics and performance of this novel class of thermoplastics composites in emerging applications. Some investigations on compatibilizing efficiency of the polypropylene modified with maleic anhydride (PP-MAH) is presented for polypropylene formulations compounded with different types of pinus wood waste. The influence of the cellulosic filler and the efficiency of the compatibilizers on thermal, mechanical and morphology of the composite system was evaluated through stiffness measurements, degree of cristallinity, crystallization and melt temperatures in regard to the resin intrinsic properties and sawdust characteristics. Electron microscopy micrographs ilustrate in great detail the filler wetting by the resin in the presence of the anhydride maleic in the polypropylene used as compatibilizer suggesting that sterification reactions may be taken place at the wood-polymer interface.
Thermoplastic composites; wood-plastics technology; compatibilizers; torque rheometer; thermal analysis
