Effect of wood flour on the properties of PP/HIPS wood plastic composites

Natural fiber reinforced composites is an emerging area in polymer science. These natural fibers are low cost fibers with low density and high specific properties. These are biodegradable and nonabrasive. The natural fiber composites offer specific properties comparable to those of conventional fiber composites. However, in development of these composites, the incompatibility of the fibers and poor resistance to moisture often reduce the potential of natural fibers, and these draw backs become critical issue. Wood-plastic composites (WPC) are a relatively new class of materials and one of the fastest growing sectors in the wood composites industry. Composites of wood in a thermoplastic matrix (wood–plastic composites) are considered a low maintenance solution to using wood in outdoor applications. WPCs are normally made from a mixture of wood fiber, thermoplastic, and small amounts of process and property modifiers through an extrusion process. The main objective of this study was to investigate the effect of different additives, namely, pine and beech flour, maleic anhydride grafted PP and styrene ethylene butylenes styrene block copolymera mixture of both on polyolefin /HIPS composite samples. Mixing was done with twin screw extruder. Subsequently, mechanical and morphological properties were determined.