Abstract
The paper investigates the synthesis of green composites and their properties before and after the laboratory accelerated aging tests. Materials were made of unsaturated polyester resins (UPRs) based on recycled poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and wood flour (WF). The effect of dibenzylideneacetone (dba) addition on mechanical and thermomechanical properties was also determined. Green composites were obtained using environment friendly polymeric cobalt as an accelerator. Before and after exposition to the xenon lamp radiation, the UPRs physically modified by WF were characterized only by a greater flexural modulus compared with the analogous composites based on the pure resin. Addition of dba caused the increase of flexural modulus, flexural strength, strain at break and mechanical loss factor compared to the non-modified material. After aging only the last mentioned parameter took on lower values compared to the pure resin analogues.
Highlights
In the last decades due to growing depletion of resources and global awareness of the environment on the Earth, an increasing interest to economically and environmentally friendly biobased materials and recycling the raw material wastes was observed
Significant importance of wood as reinforcement for the polymeric composite is due to the fact that the biofiller has the advantages such as high-specific strength, low cost, low-density, biodegradability, low water absorption and thickness swelling
The estromal orthophthalic resin based on recycled poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) (LERG, Pustków, Poland) is a bluish-green colored liquid
Summary
In the last decades due to growing depletion of resources and global awareness of the environment on the Earth, an increasing interest to economically and environmentally friendly biobased materials and recycling the raw material wastes was observed. The composites made from synthetic polymeric resin and natural organic fillers such as wood flour, wood fibers or agricultural wastes are often used [1,2,3,4,5]. Unsaturated polyester resins are the most common in preparing composites, comprising 80% excess of all thermoset resins [6]. Unsaturated polyester resin (UPR) from recycled poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) has drawn the attention of many researchers owing to the cost-effective product for polymeric composites [7,8,9,10]. Significant importance of wood as reinforcement for the polymeric composite is due to the fact that the biofiller has the advantages such as high-specific strength, low cost, low-density, biodegradability, low water absorption and thickness swelling. Softwood flour is a cellulose-containing material and its chemical composition is as follows, cellulose (40–44%), hemicellulose (25–29%) and lignin (25–31%) [11]
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