Feasibility Assessment of a Wood-Plastic Composite Post-Production Process: Cuttability

Abstract

Wood-plastic composites (WPCs) are facing a rapid market growth. Environmental legislation changes in recent years have demanded improving the recycling targets. The post-production shaping process allows the utilization of a wide range of recycled composite materials and enables the production of a diverse set of products, instead of the currently limited shapes and profiles with a uniform cross section. In the novel post-production process, the cuttability of extruded WPC material including 45% wood fiber, 50% thermoplastic and 5% of other additives is one of the two key elements in successful production of the new products presented in this article. In the studied production process, extrusion is used to produce a pre-determined WPC sheet, which is formed and cut in the post-production process to obtain the final product. The press-forming process is used in the second production stage to form and cut the pre-determined profile shape.