Cellulose bionanocomposites replacing petro-plastics
- Reference number
- FID15-0115
- Start and end dates
- 170101-210831
- Amount granted
- 2 500 000 SEK
- Administrative organization
- RISE Bioekonomi
- Research area
- Materials Science and Technology
Summary
The consumption of petroleum-based polymers keeps increasing due to the market growth in developing countries. Due to the long-term risks associated with global warming, plastic waste, and the problem of using finite petroleum resources for materials production, it is desirable to use an increased fraction of material components based on bioresources. This represents an opportunity for the Swedish Forest Products Industry, an industry that is of great importance for the trade balance in Sweden as well as the employment in rural regions. A major area for new products is thermoplastic biocomposites for melt-processing and the aim of this project is to develop such materials. The condensed work plan is to start with the development of compounding strategies for the material components and improve the compatibility between components. Then the processing conditions should be fine-tuned in order to expand the property space and the focus in this face will also be on the optimization of the nanofiber component. Finally, the geometry and fibre orientation distribution will be optimized in order to improve the mechanical performance of the bionanocomposites. The expected result will be one or more types of suitable biocomposites with superior performance compared to current fibre-reinforced polyolefin composites. The result should be a biocomposite that is suitable for use in either, the building, automotive, furniture or rigid plastic packaging sector.
Popular science description
Projektet syftar till nya nanostrukturerade biokompositer från cellulosa, som kan ersätta syntetiska petroplaster. Genom att utgå från vedfibrer med högt cellulosainnehåll så har man ett billig råvara med goda mekaniska egenskaper. Under kompoundering och materialblandning så sönderfaller vedfibern till mindre nanofibrer som ger dramatiskt bättre förstärkningseffekt än vanliga träpartiklar och naturfibrer. Just detta steg är i fokus för forskningsinsatserna. Det höga cellulosainnehållet gör också att man kan framställa material med god termisk stabilitet och fuktresistens, vilket banar väg för att ersätta syntetiska plaster med mer miljövänliga alternativ. Materialen kan skapa en grund för en ny svensk industri baserad på mer avancerade cellulosamaterial.