Abstract
Due to the continuous decrease in the level of oil resource, nowadays researchers from all fields are concerned with the creation of new bio plastics with special properties. The present work presents a series of such properties, which become achievable when reinforcing organic fibre materials obtained by reactive extrusion of thermoplastic Polyurethan (TPU) with Polylactid-Acid (PLA) in a twin-screw extruder and covalently linked into PLA-TPU-Blends, through the innovative one-step process technology, using the IMC Krauss Maffei injection moulding compounder, at the IKT University of Stuttgart. The elongation at break of PLA-TPU-Blends and the impact strength could be increased without significant reduction of strength and stiffness. A balanced relation between improved impact strength and reduced stiffness can be achieved by varying of the blend components. By using the partially biobased Polyurethane and natural fibres, a biobased content of more than 90% could be achieved. More and more advanced technologies allow the manufacture of components with reinforcements made of glass fibres, natural or carbon fibres obtained from polypropylene or Lignin. Due to their low specific weight compared to glass, carbon fibres are preferred for lightweight structures in the automotive or aeronautics industries. Green Carbon fibres, made in innovative ways from acrylonitrile resulting in the production of Bio-Diesel from algae, can successfully replace the conventional carbon fibres of Polypropylene, having identical properties. Fibre reinforcement aims to improve mechanical strength and impact resistance and increases the dimensional stability under heat of the composite. This feasibility study shows a method to realize fibre-reinforced materials using Green Carbon fibres with remarkable stability and rigidity similar or better than aluminum and steel for lightweight constructions.
Highlights
Given the increasing demands on reducing the mass of automotive components, fibre reinforced plastics are an increasingly attractive alternative for the automotive industry
The present work presents a series of such properties, which become achievable when reinforcing organic fibre materials obtained by reactive extrusion of thermoplastic Polyurethan (TPU) with Polylactid-Acid (PLA) in a twin-screw extruder and covalently linked into PLA-TPU-Blends, through the innovative "one-step process" technology, using the Injection Molding Compounders (IMC) Krauss Maffei injection moulding compounder, at the IKT University of Stuttgart
Given that researchers at the University of Munich have succeeded in creating new carbon fibres, generated from algae and called "Green Carbon", the idea of this feasibility study was born in which the possibilities of making composites with reinforcement from Green Carbon for automotive, aircraft or sports industries are described
Summary
Given the increasing demands on reducing the mass of automotive components, fibre reinforced plastics are an increasingly attractive alternative for the automotive industry. Reducing the mass of vehicles is a solution that can reduce CO2 emissions. Ever since the first cars built in 1950-1960 in East Germany (DDR), due to the reduced possibilities from that time, there were used car components made of thermosetting plastics, a glue based on Phenol, with reinforcement of cotton fibres or wood sawdust. This is why Trabant cars bore the name "Plasticbomber". In the mid-1950s, at the Lloyd Company the compressed sawdust was replaced with steel, but the Trabant remained, until the last year of production (1990), the follower of the concept "Cotton-Phenol-Glue". Some truck cabs are made from cotton fibres and Phenol-Glue [3]
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