Abstract
For the low weight and high strength, the microcellular extrusion foaming technology was applied in the preparation of polypropylene (PP)-based wood polymer composites, and the spherical cavity mixer was used to construct an experimental platform for the uniform dispersion of wood flour (WF). The effects of PP molecular configuration on the composite properties and cell morphology of samples were also investigated. The experimental results indicated that the application of a spherical cavity mixer with a cavity radius of 5 mm could effectively improve the mixing quality and avoid the agglomeration of WF. In addition, compared with the branched molecule, the linear molecule not only increased the melting temperature by about 10 °C, but also endowed composites with a higher complex viscosity at a shear rate lower than 100 s−1, which contributed to the cell morphology of more microporous samples.
Highlights
In recent decades, the rapid development of society consumed a large amount of timber and polymers, and created innumerable waste plastics and wood, which cause serious environmental pollution and a huge shortage of forest resources [1,2,3]
The wider molecular weight distribution of PP2 promoted the growth of trigonal crystal [25], while the introduction of an ethylene segment destroyed the continuity of the propylene segment and transformed the PP1 macromolecular chain into triclinic crystal with a high number of polypropylene short chains
The conviscosity of composites mixed with wood flour (WF) enhanced the bubble growth resistance, which clusions from this research are summarized listed as WF
Summary
The rapid development of society consumed a large amount of timber and polymers, and created innumerable waste plastics and wood, which cause serious environmental pollution and a huge shortage of forest resources [1,2,3]. Composites with waste plastics and wood flour (WF), when used as raw materials, have great advantage in terms of their environmental protection, high chemical resistance and good processing characteristics. They are deemed to be a kind of high-value-added, green, environmental protection material [4,5]. The excessive addition of WF could reduce the toughness, impact strength and bending strength of WPCs, which limits the high-performance application of WPCs. the introduction of a uniform microporous structure was found to be effective in improving the ductility while decreasing the density of composites, which is mainly attributed to the fact that the cracks inside materials were effectively suppressed by the micropores, leading to the increased growth energy [11,12]. The effect of WF content and molecular structure on the morphology of composites was investigated, aiming to explore the evolution law of bubbles and promote the microporosization of composites
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