scholarly journals Functional MgO–Lignin Hybrids and Their Application as Fillers for Polypropylene Composites

Molecules ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 864 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aleksandra Grząbka-Zasadzińska ◽  
Łukasz Klapiszewski ◽  
Teofil Jesionowski ◽  
Sławomir Borysiak

Inorganic–organic hybrids are a group of materials that have recently become the subject of intense scientific research. They exhibit some of the specific properties of both highly durable inorganic materials (e.g., titanium dioxide, zinc) and organic products with divergent physicochemical traits (e.g., lignin, chitin). This combination results in improved physicochemical, thermal or mechanical properties. Hybrids with defined characteristics can be used as fillers for polymer composites. In this study, three types of filler with different MgO/lignin ratio were used as fillers for polypropylene (PP). The effectiveness of MgO-lignin binding was confirmed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. The fillers were also tested in terms of thermal stability, dispersive-morphological properties as well as porous structure. Polymer composites containing 3 wt.% of each filler were subjected to wide angle X-ray diffraction tests, differential scanning calorimetry and microscopic studies to define their structure, morphology and thermal properties. Additionally, tensile tests of the composites were performed. It was established that the composition of the filler has a significant influence on the crystallization of polypropylene—either spherulites or transcrystalline layers were formed. The value of Young’s modulus and tensile strength remained unaffected by filler type. However, composites with hybrid fillers exhibited lower elongation at break than unfilled polypropylene.

Coatings ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 261
Author(s):  
Adolfo Bucio ◽  
Rosario Moreno-Tovar ◽  
Lauro Bucio ◽  
Jessica Espinosa-Dávila ◽  
Francisco Anguebes-Franceschi

A study on the physical and mechanical properties of beeswax (BW), candelilla wax (CW), paraffin wax (PW) and blends was carried out with the aim to evaluate their usefulness as coatings for cheeses. Waxes were analyzed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), permeability, viscosity, flexural and tensile tests and scanning electron microscopy. Cheeses were coated with the waxes and stored for 5 weeks at 30 °C. Measured parameters were weight, moisture, occurrence and degree of fractures, and dimensional changes. The crystal phases identified by XRD for the three waxes allowed them to determine the length of alkanes and the nonlinear compounds in crystallizable forms in waxes. FTIR spectra showed absorption bands between 1800 and 800 cm−1 related to carbonyls in BW and CW. In DSC, the onset of melting temperature was 45.5 °C for BW, and >54 °C for CW and PW. Cheeses coated with BW did not show cracks after storage. Cheeses coated with CW and PW showed microcraks, and lost weight, moisture and shrunk. In the flexural and tensile tests, BW was ductile; CW and PW were brittle. BW blends with CW or PW displays a semi ductile behavior. Cheeses coated with BW blends lost less than 5% weight during storage. The best waxes were BW and the blends.


Molecules ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (24) ◽  
pp. 4433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carolina Caicedo ◽  
Rocío Yaneli Aguirre Loredo ◽  
Abril Fonseca García ◽  
Omar Hernán Ossa ◽  
Aldo Vázquez Arce ◽  
...  

The modification of achira starch a thermoplastic biopolymer is shown. Glycerol and sorbitol, common plasticizers, were used in the molten state with organic acids such as oleic acid and lactic acid obtaining thermodynamically more stable products. The proportion of starch:plasticizer was 70:30, and the acid agent was added in portions from 3%, 6%, and 9% by weight. These mixtures were obtained in a torque rheometer for 10 min at 130 °C. The lactic acid managed to efficiently promote the gelatinization process by increasing the available polar sites towards the surface of the material; as a result, there were lower values in the contact angle, these results were corroborated with the analysis performed by differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray diffraction. The results derived from oscillatory rheological analysis had a viscous behavior in the thermoplastic starch samples and with the presence of acids; this behavior favors the transitions from viscous to elastic. The mixture of sorbitol or glycerol with lactic acid promoted lower values of the loss module, the storage module, and the complex viscosity, which means lower residual energy in the transition of the viscous state to the elastic state; this allows the compounds to be scaled to conventional polymer transformation processes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 89 (9) ◽  
pp. 1770-1781 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huaizhong Xu ◽  
Benedict Bauer ◽  
Masaki Yamamoto ◽  
Hideki Yamane

A facile route was proposed to fabricate core–sheath microfibers, and the relationships among processing parameters, crystalline structures and the mechanical properties were investigated. The compression molded poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyhexanoate) (PHBH)/poly(L-lactic acid) (PLLA) strip enhanced the spinnability of PHBH and the mechanical properties of PLLA as well. The core–sheath ratio of the fibers was determined by the prefab strip, while the PLLA sheath component did not completely cover the PHBH core component due to the weak interfacial tension between the melts of PHBH and PLLA. A rotational target was applied to collect aligned fibers, which were further drawn in a water bath. The tensile strength and the modulus of as-spun and drawn fibers increased with increasing the take-up velocities. When the take-up velocity was above 500 m/min, the jet became unstable and started to break up at the tip of the Taylor cone, decreasing the mechanical properties of the fibers. The drawing process facilitated the crystallization of PLLA and PHBH, and the tensile strength and the modulus increased linearly with the increasing the draw ratio. The crystal information displayed from wide-angle X-ray diffraction patterns and differential scanning calorimetry heating curves supported the results of the tensile tests.


2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Kultys ◽  
Magdalena Rogulska

New thermoplastic poly(carbonate-urethane) elastomersTwo series of novel thermoplastic poly(carbonate-urethane) elastomers, with different hard-segment content (30 - 60 wt %), were synthesized by melt polymerization from poly(hexane-1,6-diyl carbonate) diol of Mn= 2000 as a soft segment, 4,4'-diphenylmethane diisocyanate (MDI) or hexane-1,6-diyl diisocyanate (HDI) and 6,6'-[methylenebis(1,4-phenylenemethylenethio)]dihexan-1-ol as a chain extender. The structure and basic properties of the polymers were examined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis, atomic force microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, thermogravimetric analysis, Shore hardness and tensile tests. The resulting TPUs were colorless polymers, showing almost amorphous structures. The MDI-based TPUs showed higher tensile strengths (up to 21.3 MPa vs. 15.8 MPa) and elongations at break (up to 550% vs. 425%), but poorer low-temperature properties than the HDI-based analogs.


Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (16) ◽  
pp. 2650
Author(s):  
Thibault Lemaire ◽  
Erica Gea Rodi ◽  
Valérie Langlois ◽  
Estelle Renard ◽  
Vittorio Sansalone

In recent years the interest in the realization of green wood plastic composites (GWPC) materials has increased due to the necessity of reducing the proliferation of synthetic plastics. In this work, we study a specific class of GWPCs from its synthesis to the characterization of its mechanical properties. These properties are related to the underlying microstructure using both experimental and modeling approaches. Different contents of Miscanthus giganteus fibers, at 5, 10, 20, 30 weight percent’s, were thus combined to a microbial matrix, namely poly (3-hydroxybutyrate)-co-poly(3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBHV). The samples were manufactured by extrusion and injection molding processing. The obtained samples were then characterized by cyclic-tensile tests, pycnometer testing, differential scanning calorimetry, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and microscopy. The possible effect of the fabrication process on the fibers size is also checked. In parallel, the measured properties of the biocomposite were also estimated using a Mori–Tanaka approach to derive the effective behavior of the composite. As expected, the addition of reinforcement to the polymer matrix results in composites with higher Young moduli on the one hand, and lower failure strains and tensile strengths on the other hand (tensile modulus was increased by 100% and tensile strength decreased by 23% when reinforced with 30 wt % of Miscanthus fibers).


Polymers ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (12) ◽  
pp. 1955 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karina del Ángel-Sánchez ◽  
César I. Borbolla-Torres ◽  
Luis M. Palacios-Pineda ◽  
Nicolás A. Ulloa-Castillo ◽  
Alex Elías-Zúñiga

This paper focuses on developing, fabricating, and characterizing composite polycaprolactone (PCL) membranes reinforced with titanium dioxide nanoparticles (NPs) elaborated by using two solvents; acetic acid and a mixture of chloroform and N,N-dimethylformamide (DMF). The resulting physical, chemical, and mechanical properties of the composite materials are studied by using experimental characterization techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) analysis, contact angle (CA), uniaxial and biaxial tensile tests, and surface roughness measurements. Experimental results show that the composite material synthesized by sol-gel and chloroform-DMF has a better performance than the one obtained by using acetic acid as a solvent.


2018 ◽  
Vol 2018 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdirahman Yussuf ◽  
Mohammad Al-Saleh ◽  
Salah Al-Enezi ◽  
Gils Abraham

Conductive polymer, polypyrrole (PPy), was synthesized by chemical oxidative polymerization technique for a period of four hours at room temperature using pyrrole monomer (mPPy) in aqueous solution. Different oxidants such as ferric chloride (FeCl3) and ammonium persulphate (N2H8S2O8) and surfactant sodium dodecyl sulphate (C12H25NaO4S) were used. The produced PPy samples were characterized by using different techniques such as the electrical resistivity by four probe technique, thermogravimetry analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The performance of the oxidants has been investigated and compared. It was found that both oxidants, FeCl3 and N2H8S2O8, have decreased electrical resistivity as a function of temperature, which means increased conductivity. However, FeCl3 has achieved better performance than N2H8S2O8, where it has achieved a lower resistivity of about 60 ohms at room temperature, which indicates higher conductivity of PPy samples with FeCl3 as an oxidant. Similarly, further investigation of FeCl3 oxidant has been conducted by varying its concentration, and its influence on the final properties was reported. It has been observed that the morphology of PPy samples has a significant influence on the conductivity. It was found that 0.1 M and 0.05 M concentrations of FeCl3 oxidant and monomer, respectively, have achieved better thermal stability, which is FeCl3/mPPy ratio of 2 as an optimum value. FTIR and XRD results confirmed the structural formation of polypyrrole from pyrrole monomer during the synthesizing process.


2011 ◽  
Vol 189-193 ◽  
pp. 1222-1227 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuan Lian ◽  
Hong Mei Wang ◽  
Dian Wu Huang

Polypropylene (PP) nanocomposites with 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 0.8, 1.0 and 2.0 wt% multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MW-CNTs) were prepared via meltcompounding in a twin-screw extruder followed by injection molding. The effects of MW-CNTs additions on the structure, mechanical and photo-oxidation behavior of PP were studied using X-ray diffraction (XRD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), tensile tests and FT-IR apparatus. XRD results showed that only α-PP crystals form in the PP/MW-CNTs composites. DSC results confirmed that the corporation of MW-CNTs enhanced the nucleation process on PP crystallization. Results of the tensile tests showed that before photo-oxidation, the tensile strengths of the samples increased with the increase of MW-CNTs contents when the MW-CNTs contents were less than 1% wt, whilst the tensile strength decreased at higher MW-CNTs contents (>1% wt). When subjected to photo-oxidation, the tensile strengths of the samples decreased with the increasing photo-oxidation time. The resistance to accelerated photo-oxidation of PP/MW-CNTs composites was also compared with the photo-oxidation behaviour of the original polypropylene sample. At short photo-oxidation time, such as under 250 h, the rates of carbonyl formation for the PP/MW-CNTs composites are similar to that observed for the original polypropylene but at longer photo-oxidation times the carbonyl formation increases for lower MW-CNTs contents (0.1, 0.2, 0.5 and 0.8% wt), and decreases for higher MW-CNTs contents (1 and 2% wt). It was found that the MW-CNTs showed both anti-degradation and pro-degradation effects at different concentrations.


2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (12) ◽  
pp. 1145-1156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nametso P. Mongwaketsi ◽  
Lebogang Kotsedi ◽  
Zebib Y. Nuru ◽  
Raymond Sparrow ◽  
Gyozo Garab ◽  
...  

The interest in exploring porphyrin-based nanostructures for artificial solar radiation harvesting stems from their structural similarity to chlorophylls. In nature, the precise organization and orientation of the chlorophylls result in efficient absorption of light energy. Inspired by these naturally occurring architectures relevant optical studies including the dynamics of intermolecular and intra-molecular processes of the porphyrin nanorods were investigated. The design of artificial light harvesting systems requires several key factors, such as absorption in the UV-visible and near-infrared wavelengths, energy transfer ability and the selection of light absorbing pigments. Another key factor is the organizational structure through which the components will interact. We attempted to accomplish this by incorporating porphyrin nanorods into polymer matrices and this will also aid in achieving an arrangement where they can be directly used as devices. The nanorods were embedded in a polymeric matrix, using latex technology and electrospinning which gave the possibility of investigating the orientation of nanorods in the polymer. Spectroscopic and microscopic studies were conducted to investigate the optical and morphological properties of the porphyrin nanorods-polymer composites for applications in artificial solar radiation harvesting systems.


Metals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 649
Author(s):  
Antonio Collazo ◽  
Raúl Figueroa ◽  
Carmen Mariño-Martínez ◽  
Carmen Pérez

Iron-based shape memory alloys (SMAs) have been widely studied during the last years, producing new formulations with potential applications in civil engineering. In the present paper, the microstructure and the thermomechanical behavior of the Fe-28Mn-6Si-5Cr memory alloy has been investigated. At room temperature, the presence of ε-martensite and γ-austenite was confirmed using optical and electron microscopy techniques. The martensitic transformation temperatures (As, Af, Ms, and Mf) were determined by differential scanning calorimetry, together with an X-ray diffraction technique. The use of these techniques also confirmed that this transformation is not totally reversible, depending on the strain degree and the number of thermal cycles. From the kinetics study of the ε → γ transformation, the isoconversion curves (transformation degree versus time) were built, which provided the information required to optimize the thermal activation cycle. Tensile tests were performed to characterize the mechanical properties of the studied alloy. These kinds of tests were also performed to assess the shape memory effect, getting a recovery stress of 140 MPa, after a 7.6% pre-strain and a thermal activation up to 160 °C.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document