Preparação e caracterização de compósitos de polipropileno pós-consumo reforçados com fibras de celulose

Abstract

Polypropylene composites reinforced with natural fibers are an important alternative considering aspects such as sustainability, recyclability, abundance and low cost, compared to synthetic fibers. This work was carried out in order to encourage the use of recycled materials, and the end result is a product even greener and profitable, through the association of recycled polypropylene and natural fibers. Thermal, mechanical and morphological composite recycled and virgin polypropylene were investigated, reinforced with up to 40% by weight of pulp fibers treated by alkaline method, bleached (FB) without bleaching (FNB) and treated with cationic surfactant bromide hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) (FCTAB) with concentration of 0.01 mol / L. To obtain the data, we used the techniques of Dynamic-Mechanical Thermal Analysis (DMTA), Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The results showed that recycled polypropylene composites with non-bleached and bleached fibers have a storage modulus (E '), lower compared to composites prepared with virgin PP, but with very close values. This reduction for composites FNB was 577 MPa for the composites FB 567 MPa and the composites FCTAB, an increase of 256 MPa. There was a reduction in the degree of crystallinity (?c) of the generated composite. Already on the crystallization temperature, the fiber insertion resulted in decreased an average of 3° C in samples with recycled mother and an increase of an average 8 ° C for the samples with virgin matrix. There was a small increase in the crystalline melting temperature (Tm), with the insertion of fibers for composites with two arrays and a decrease of about 6°C in glass transition temperature (Tg) for composites FCTAB, and around 3°C for at FNB and FB.