Abstract
The crystallization behavior of bamboo fiber (BF) reinforced polypropylene (PP) composites (BPCs) was investigated using a differential scanning calorimeter (DSC). The results showed that unmodified BF as a nucleation agent accelerated the crystallization rate of the PP matrix during cooling whereas there is no significant effect on the improved crystallization rate in BPCs with acetylated BFs. Based on the Avrami method, Avrami–Ozawa method, and Friedman method, the corresponding crystallization kinetics of PP reinforced with different acetylation levels of BFs were further analyzed. The results demonstrated that the crystal growth mechanism of the PP matrix for BPCs with unmodified and various acetylated BFs exhibited tabular crystal growth with heterogeneous nucleation. A higher cooling rate is required to achieve a certain relative crystallinity degree at the unit crystallization time for BPCs with a higher weight percent gain (WPG) of acetylated BFs (WPG >13%). Furthermore, based on the Friedman method, the lowest crystallization activation energy was observed for the BPCs with 19% WPG of acetylated BFs.
Highlights
Natural fibers have potential as an eco-friendly reinforcement of composite materials to replace inorganic fibers due to their CO2 neutral, low cost, low density, renewability, and biodegradability properties [1]
The n values had no significant differences among the samples, suggesting that the nonisothermal crystallization mechanisms of PP were tabular crystal growth with heterogeneous nucleation. These results indicated that the nucleation mechanism and geometry of crystal growth at different cooling rates were similar; the acetylated bamboo fiber (BF) was not significantly different from the unmodified BF in the nucleation mechanism of the PP matrix under the cooling process
The nonisothermal crystallization kinetics of bamboo plastic composites (BPCs) with various weight percent gain (WPG) of acetylated BFs were determined by differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) and analyzed using the Avrami method, Avrami–Ozawa method, and Friedman method
Summary
Natural fibers have potential as an eco-friendly reinforcement of composite materials to replace inorganic fibers due to their CO2 neutral, low cost, low density, renewability, and biodegradability properties [1]. Previous studies have reported that BFs as a reinforcement can be added to a polymer matrix to fabricate bamboo plastic composites (BPCs) since their excellent characteristics could improve the properties of these polymer composites [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. It is well-known that the interfacial interaction between hydrophilic lignocellulosics and hydrophobic thermoplastics is incompatible. To overcome this drawback, several physical and chemical approaches have been used to modify lignocellulosic fibers, e.g., by increasing their hydrophobicity and improving their dimensional and thermal stabilities [11,12,13,14]
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