Research Article | OPEN ACCESS
Investigating the Effect of Nanoclay on Polypropylene-Made Cellulose Composite
1Naeli Shokoufa, 2Nourbakhsh Amir, 1Ghodrati Ashkan, 1Talaeipour Mohammad and 1Khademi-Eslam, Habibollah
1Department of Wood and Paper, Science and Research Branch,
Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2Department of Wood and Paper Science, Research Institute of Forests and Rangelands (RIFR), Tehran, Iran
Research Journal of Applied Sciences, Engineering and Technology 2013 21:4022-4029
Received: April 26, 2013 | Accepted: May 28, 2013 | Published: November 20, 2013
Abstract
This study investigates the effect of adding the nanoclay particles on the mechanical properties of polypropylene-made cellulose composite. Based-on-polypropylene composites are mixed with the particles of wheat stalk flour with the dimensional size (mesh 80), nanoclay at three different levels (0, 2 and 4) per hundred compounds (phc) and also with Maleic Anhydride-grafted Polypropylene (MAPP) as compatibilizer by Dr. Colin machine at 180°C and 60 rpm and the standard test samples were made by injection molding method. Then the mechanical properties such as the tensile strength, flexural strength and impact strength were measured. Finally, the cellulose composite was examined by the X-Ray Diffraction method (XRD) in order to study the structure and function of nanoclay particles and particles of wheat stalk flour with dimension 80 mesh. The results of mechanical test indicate that with an increase in the nanoclay amount up to the level 2 phc, the tensile and flexural strengths and tensile and flexural modulus of composite will be increased. However, these strengths will be decreased by increasing the amount of nanoclay to the level 4 phc. Moreover, the impact strength of composite is decreased by increasing the amount of nanoclay. Survey, conducted by the transmission X-ray diffraction on the nanocomposites indicates that the samples containing 2 phc nanoclay in the combination with the polymer have reached the intercalated structures. Furthermore, the samples with 4 phc nanoclay have shown the intercalated-flocculated structures. In general, the results showed that the best combination of materials for making the composite contained 2 phc nanoclay in terms of mechanical properties.
Keywords:
Cellulose composite, mechanical properties, nanoclay, polypropylene,
Competing interests
The authors have no competing interests.
Open Access Policy
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Copyright
The authors have no competing interests.
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ISSN (Online): 2040-7467
ISSN (Print): 2040-7459 |
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