Wear Properties of Wood-plastic Composites Pretreated with a Stearic Acid-palmitic Acid Mixture before Exposure to Degradative Water Conditions

Abstract

Wood-plastic composites (WPCs) are experiencing rapid growth in terms of applications where they may be subject to degradation and wear. This paper investigated the effect of sorghum straw (SS) fiber, pretreated with a mixture of stearic and palmitic acids, on the wear behaviors of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) composites in alternated simulated sea water and acid rain aqueous conditions. The results showed that the water resistance of the SS/PVC composites improved noticeably after pretreatment with 0.80 wt% stearic and 0.50 wt% palmitic acid (0.8SA-0.5PA). The SS/PVC composites pretreated with 0.8SA-0.5PA exhibited high water (moisture) resistance, hardness, mechanical, thermal, and wear resistance properties. Exposure to degradative water worsened interfacial bonding, and degraded the matrix strength and heat resistance, which reduced the wear resistance of the SS/PVC composites. The wear mechanism of the SS/PVC composites after 12 d of soaking was abrasive wear.

The effect of maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene addition on the degradation in the mechanical properties of the PP/wood composites

“…Usually, the flour particles are bigger and are easy to debonding from the polymer matrix thereby posing an interfacial adhesion problem [ [8] , [9] , [10] ]. To address this adhesion problem, some studies were performed that opted for treating wood flour particles with NaOH solution [ 11 , 12 ] or coating the wood flour particles with stearic acid [ 13 , 14 ] and other focused on using the Maleic anhydride (MA) functionalized polymers for the production of wood polymer reinforced composite [ [15] , [16] , [17] ]. It is reported that the stiffness of the composite is unaffected by the functionalized polymers; However, the composite showed an enhancement in its strength when using such functionalized polymers for the production of the composites [ 18 , 19 ].…”