Abstract
This study examined the effects of selected types of thermoplastics on the physical and mechanical properties of polymer-triticale boards. The investigated thermoplastics differed in their type (polypropylene (PP), polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS)), form (granulate, agglomerate) and origin (native, recycled). The resulting five-ply boards contained layers made from different materials (straw or pine wood) and featured different moisture contents (2%, 25%, and 7% for the face, middle, and core layers, respectively). Thermoplastics were added only to two external layers, where they substituted 30% of straw particles. This study demonstrated that, irrespective of their type, thermoplastics added to the face layers most favorably reduced the hydrophobic properties of the boards, i.e., thickness, swelling, and V100, by nearly 20%. The bending strength and modulus of elasticity were about 10% lower in the experimental boards than in the reference ones, but still within the limits set out in standard for P7 boards (20 N/mm2 according to EN 312).
Highlights
Wood plastic composites (WPCs) are usually made from forestry waste, including waste wood flour, wood shavings, and sawdust, and can be produced using different methods, e.g., extrusion, injection or compression molding [1]
The study demonstrated a drop in the bending strength and modulus of elasticity irrespective of the thermoplastic type added to the face layers (Table 3)
The drop was the greatest for the board supplemented with high-density polyethylene, and amounted to 5.5 N/mm2 for the bending strength and 860 N/mm2 for the modulus of elasticity
Summary
Wood plastic composites (WPCs) are usually made from forestry waste, including waste wood flour, wood shavings, and sawdust, and can be produced using different methods, e.g., extrusion, injection or compression molding [1]. Extrusion is a predominant technology for the manufacturing of WPCs, even though it only allows for predetermined dimensions of the boards. Another possibility is to produce WPCs on a flat-press [2,3,4,5,6,7,8], as in the industrial particleboard manufacturing process. This is a new, technically more advantageous, and simple method for producing large-size. The resulting products closely compare to commercial medium-density fiberboard (MDF), particleboard, oriented strand board (OSB), and plywood
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