Abstract
Wood flour or sawdust is often used as filler in
conventional wood plastic composite (WPC) materials.
However, there has been an increasing interest to the use
of wood pulp fibres in reinforced plastic applications,
because they can provide enhanced strength properties and
better biodegradability characteristics for the
composite. This research compares the effect of recycled
fibres or side streams of paper as reinforcement in
polylactic acid (PLA) or polypropylene (PP) composites.
Fibre material from liquid packaging board, non-deinked
old newspapers and fibre sludge from recycling processes
are compared with virgin softwood kraft pulp fibres.
Composites were produced by melt processing to a fibre
content of 30 wt.% (or 10 wt.% fibre sludge), and the
mechanical properties were investigated. Recycled fibres
provided comparable, or even higher, plastic
reinforcement than virgin softwood fibres. In
polypropylene composites, the differences in mechanical
properties between different fibre types were relatively
small. Fibre sludge decreased the mechanical performance
of composites but can be considered as cheap filler in
cases when mechanical properties are not crucial. The
possibility to use low-cost materials like recovered
paper or deinking sludge in wood plastic composites is an
interesting option for future sustainable applications.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 116-122 |
Journal | Journal of Bioresources and Bioproducts |
Volume | 2 |
Issue number | 3 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2017 |
MoE publication type | A1 Journal article-refereed |