Abstract
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphene, with their unique mechanical, electrical, thermal, optical, and wettability properties, are very effective fillers for many types of composites. Recently, a number of studies have shown that CNTs and graphene may be integrated into wood–plastic composites (WPCs) and natural-fibre-reinforced polymer composites (NFPCs) to improve the existing performance of the WPCs/NFPCs as well as enabling their use in completely new areas of engineering. The following review analyses the results of the studies presented to date, from which it can be seen that that inclusion of CNTs/graphene may indeed improve the mechanical properties of the WPCs/NFPCs, while increasing their thermal conductivity, making them electroconductive, more photostable, less sensitive to water absorption, less flammable, and more thermally stable. This study indicates that the composition and methods of manufacturing of hybrid WPCs/NFPCs vary significantly between the samples, with a consequent impact on the level of improvement of specific properties. This review also shows that the incorporation of CNTs/graphene may enable new applications of WPCs/NFPCs, such as solar thermal energy storage devices, electromagnetic shielding, antistatic packaging, sensors, and heaters. Finally, this paper recognises key challenges in the study area, and proposes future work.
Highlights
Wood–plastic composites (WPCs) entered the market in the 1990s; they are usually composed of up to 50% w/w of wood flour, thermoplastic polymers, and small amounts of additives such as dyes or coupling agents [1]
The existing literature indicates that enriching WPCs and natural-fibre-reinforced polymer composites (NFPCs) with carbon nanomaterials may be highly beneficial to the performance of the WPCs/NFPCs
Another example was published by Nourbakhsh et al [54], who formed a set of samples using either poplar fibres or bagasse stalk with a polypropylene/maleic anhydride-grafted polypropylene (MAPP) coupling agent and multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs)
Summary
Wood–plastic composites (WPCs) entered the market in the 1990s; they are usually composed of up to 50% w/w of wood flour, thermoplastic polymers (polypropylene, polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride etc.), and small amounts of additives such as dyes or coupling agents [1]. Polymer composites were the first major area in which CNTs and graphene found commercial applications Both nanomaterials have been used to enhance mechanical properties [44], improve thermal stability [45], decrease flammability [46,47], introduce electrical and thermal conductivity [39], and much more [48]. The existing literature indicates that enriching WPCs and NFPCs with carbon nanomaterials may be highly beneficial to the performance of the WPCs/NFPCs. Expanding on this, in general, it has been shown that the addition of graphene or carbon nanotubes may result in an improvement of mechanical properties [53,54,55,56], an increase in electrical and thermal conductivity [57,58,59,60], a decrease in water absorption, and an improvement of thermal stability [61,62] and/or fire retardancy [60].
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