Melt volume flow rate and melt flow rate of kenaf fibre reinforced Floreon/magnesium hydroxide biocomposites.

C H Lee,M R Hassan,J H Lee,S M Sapuan

doi:10.1186/s40064-016-3044-1

Abstract

A study of the melt volume flow rate (MVR) and the melt flow rate (MFR) of kenaf fibre (KF) reinforced Floreon (FLO) and magnesium hydroxide (MH) biocomposites under different temperatures (160–180 °C) and weight loadings (2.16, 5, 10 kg) is presented in this paper. FLO has the lowest values of MFR and MVR. The increment of the melt flow properties (MVR and MFR) has been found for KF or MH insertion due to the hydrolytic degradation of the polylactic acid in FLO. Deterioration of the entanglement density at high temperature, shear thinning and wall slip velocity were the possible causes for the higher melt flow properties. Increasing the KF loadings caused the higher melt flow properties while the higher MH contents created stronger bonding for higher macromolecular chain flow resistance, hence lower melt flow properties were recorded. However, the complicated melt flow behaviour of the KF reinforced FLO/MH biocomposites was found in this study. The high probability of KF–KF and KF–MH collisions was expected and there were more collisions for higher fibre and filler loading causing lower melt flow properties.

Highlights

In recent years, natural fibre reinforcement with thermoset or thermoplastic polymer biocomposites have been studied intensively (Maleque et al 2007; Sapuan and Harimi 2003; Sastra et al 2006; Nur Aimi et al 2014)
A ball-bearing effect has been performed by the kenaf fibre (KF) and this has resulted in a higher melt flow rate (MFR) (Liang et al 1999)
The melt flow properties of the KF reinforced FLO/magnesium hydroxide (MH) bicomposites have been studied for varying temperatures and weight loads

Summary

Introduction

Natural fibre reinforcement with thermoset or thermoplastic polymer biocomposites have been studied intensively (Maleque et al 2007; Sapuan and Harimi 2003; Sastra et al 2006; Nur Aimi et al 2014). Floreon (FLO) was developed by The University of Sheffield and CPD PLC in November 2013 (The Floreon Development Blog 2015) It is a biodegradable polymer which is constructed using standard polylactic acid (PLA). A lower manufacturing energy is required to produce FLO since it can be processed at about 160 °C, while most of the matrices require a temperature higher than 180 °C (Shukor et al 2014; Ersoy and Taşdemir 2012; Liang et al 2011; Libolon 2015; Lee et al 2014). It ensures a lower chance of fibre thermal degradation, especially for a low thermal stability

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