Eff ect of nanoclay par ticles on t he water a bsorption of polyprop ylene/Ca nola straw flour co mposites

Wood plastic co mposites (W PCs) have experienced significant market ex pansion in r ecent years as a replac ement for solid wood, mainly in outdoor applications such as railings, deckin g, landscaping timbers, fencing, playground eq uipment, windows and door frame s, etc. Nowadays, the consumption o f plastic ma terials has increased enormously du e to their v arious advantages. On o ne hand, the worldwide production of plastics is about ۲۴۵ million ton s per annum , resulting in a significa nt amount o f municipal solid waste and most pl astics take a very long time to decompose in nature the dis posal of pol ymers after use is an important prob lem . On the other han d, in the w ood industry, a large amount of wood wast e is generated at differe nt stages of the wood processing t hat this waste mainly en d up in landfills (dump sites in a fe w areas) or burned. The volume of wood flour waste generated in the wood indus try is very high, estimated at around ۱۶% of its total production[۱]. Using organo-modified mont morillonite (MMT) (commonly called ‘‘Nanoclay’’) to reinforc e polymer-based comp osites have raised great attention to academic a nd industrial sectors since the addition of small amount of n anoclay co uld substant ially enhance the physic al and mec hanical properties of both thermoplastic and thermoset polymers. Clays are in nature organoph obic, but they can be ch anged into organophilic by replacing the Na+ or Ca۲+ cation originally present in the Galleries with one organic cation such as alkylammonium ions via an ion-exchange reaction۲.

کلیدواژه ها:

Nanoclay ، Polypr opylene ، Water absorption ، Canola straw.