The efficacy of wood dust fibre treatment on the property of wood dust reinforced recycled polypropylene composite (r-WoPPC) filament was investigated. The wood dust fibre was treated using alkali, silane, and NaOH-silane. The treated wood fibre was incorporated with r-PP using a twin-screw extruder to produce filament. The silane treatment on wood dust fibre enhances interfacial bonding between wood fibre and recycled PP; hence, a filament has the highest wire pull strength, which is 35.2% higher compared to untreated and alkaline-treated wood dust filament. It is because silanol in silane forms a siloxane bond that acts as a coupling agent that improves interfacial bonding between wood dust fibre and recycled PP. The SEM micrograph of the fracture structure reveals that treated silane has strong interfacial bonding between wood dust fibre and recycled PP, having minimal void, gap, and good fibre adhesion. The water absorption test results indicate that filament with treated wood dust absorbs less water than filament with untreated wood because the treatment minimizes the gap between wood fibres and recycled PP. The FTIR analysis identified the presence of silane on the wood dust surface for silane-treated wood dust. The DSC studies suggest that the temperature range 167–170 °C be used in the extrusion machine to produce r- WoPPC filament. As a result, r-WoPPc filaments containing silane-treated wood dust have better mechanical properties and have a greater potential for usage in FDM applications.
Surface wettability behaviour is generally categorised as hydrophobic and hydrophilic depending on the contact angle value. Surface wettability has been attracting considerable attention in research due to its unique behaviour in the field of self-cleaning, anti-fouling and anti-corrosion. Surfaces with high and low wettabilities can be fabricated using various methods, including chemical etching, anodisation and laser surface texturing. The present study investigated the effects of textured surfaces via laser surface texturing on the wettability properties of TiO 2 /ZnO coatings. TiO 2 /ZnO coating was selected due to its high photocatalytic activity, non-toxicity and low cost, which are essential properties for self-cleaning and anti-fouling applications. Picosecond laser ablation was used to produce microdimple textures on the coating surfaces. The wettability of the laser-textured surfaces was greatly reduced, achieving superhydrophilic properties with contact angle of 1.4° ± 2.42° for laser-textured TiO 2 coating. On the other hand, coatings with ZnO compositions exhibited increased contact angles for both textured and non-textured surfaces. Moreover, no clear cut correlations between the surface roughness properties of non-textured and laser-textured TiO 2 /ZnO coatings and the surface wettability properties was observed. This finding provides new approaches in designing textured surface materials that can effectively increase the wettability properties for selfcleaning and anti-fouling applications.
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