Abstract
The present study focuses on a comparison between different cellulose fiber-reinforced thermoplastics. Composites were produced with 30 mass-% lyocell fibers and a PLA or PP matrix with either an injection (IM) or compression molding (CM) process. Significant reinforcement effects were achieved for tensile strength, Young’s modulus, and Shore D hardness by using lyocell as reinforcing fiber. These values are significantly higher for PLA and its composites compared to PP and PP-based composites. Investigations of the fiber/matrix adhesion show a better bonding for lyocell in PLA compared to PP, resulting in a more effective load transfer from the matrix to the fiber. However, PLA is brittle while PP shows a ductile stress-strain behavior. The impact strength of PLA was drastically improved by adding lyocell while the impact strength of PP decreased. CM and IM composites do not show significant differences in fiber orientation. Despite a better compaction of IM composites, higher tensile strength values were achieved for CM samples due to a higher fiber length.
Highlights
Petrochemical-based polyolefins like polypropylene (PP) are common matrices for natural fiber-reinforced composites [1,2,3,4]
Results have shown for both compression molding (CM) and injection molding (IM) composites significantly higher tensile strength and Young’s modulus values for PLA-based composites compared to PP-based composites
Different impact behavior was observed for short fiber-reinforced IM composites compared to long fiber-reinforced CM composites
Summary
Petrochemical-based polyolefins like polypropylene (PP) are common matrices for natural fiber-reinforced composites [1,2,3,4]. An overview about natural fibers and their composites may be taken from [5,6,7,8,9]. Nowadays the main application area of cellulose fiber-reinforced thermoplastics can be found in the automotive industry for nonvisible parts like indoor panels, dashboards, wheel covers, and so on [10, 11]. In the near future it is envisaged to establish natural fiber-reinforced biobased plastics apart from the automotive industry for higher loaded components. The present study gives an overview about the characteristics of cellulose fiber-reinforced PP and PLA composites and a possibility of improving the brittle character of PLA with regenerated cellulose fibers. Two different production procedures—compression molding (CM) and injection molding (IM)—were used for composite production
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
