Processing, mechanical and thermal behavior assessments of polycaprolactone/agricultural wastes biocomposites

Aleksander Hejna; Krzysztof Formela; Mohammad Saeb

doi:10.1016/j.indcrop.2015.07.049

Processing, mechanical and thermal behavior assessments of polycaprolactone/agricultural wastes biocomposites

Abstract

In this paper, brewer’s spent grain (BSG) was applied as potential lignocellulose biofiller in biocompos-ites based on polycaprolactone (PCL). The PCL/BSG biocomposites filled with varying content of biofillerswere prepared via low-temperature melt-compounding. These conditions allow limiting thermal degra-dation of used biofillers during processing. The influence of biofiller content (ranging from 25 to 200parts by weight on 100 parts of PCL) on processing, static and dynamic mechanical properties, thermalproperties and water absorption was investigated. For better characterization of interfacial interactionsbetween PCL and BSG obtained results were compared with properties of biocomposites filled with otheragricultural waste - wheat bran (WB). It was observed that higher amount of amino-acids present in theBSG (21 wt.%), in comparison to WB (4 wt.%), caused partial plasticization of PCL matrix, which improvedprocessing but simultaneously deteriorated the mechanical properties of PCL/agricultural wastes bio-composites. The melt flow index of PCL/BSG was two-folds higher than for PCL/WB composites. The bestmechanical properties were achieved in case of PCL/WB biocomposites, which showed higher values ofstorage modulus, 5% higher values of hardness and at least 30% higher tensile strength in most cases.Obtained results suggest better compatibility between the PCL matrix and WB in comparison to the BSG,which were explained by differences in the content of proteins in applied biofillers. The conducted inves-tigations showed that BSG and WB could be successfully applied as a low-cost substitute of lignocellulosefillers in polymer wood composites and biocomposites.

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Authors (3)

Aleksander Hejna dr inż.
Krzysztof Formela dr inż.
Mohammad Saeb
- Institute for Color Science and Technology, P.O. Box: 16765-654, Tehran, Irana Department of Resin and Additives

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Category:: Articles
Type:: artykuł w czasopiśmie wyróżnionym w JCR
Published in:: INDUSTRIAL CROPS AND PRODUCTS no. 76, pages 725 - 733,
ISSN: 0926-6690
Language:: English
Publication year:: 2015
Bibliographic description:: Hejna A., Formela K., Saeb M.: Processing, mechanical and thermal behavior assessments of polycaprolactone/agricultural wastes biocomposites// INDUSTRIAL CROPS AND PRODUCTS. -Vol. 76, (2015), s.725-733
DOI:: Digital Object Identifier (open in new tab) 10.1016/j.indcrop.2015.07.049
Verified by:: Gdańsk University of Technology