Wood Plastic Composites

Status

completed

Summary

The market for natural fibre reinforced plastics increased dramatically in the last years, especially in USA and Japan with annual growing rates up to 25% and more. But in the beginning of the last decade also Europe showed increasing interest in these materials. Beside hemp and flax, which are mainly used in the automotive market, also wood-fibres get more and more important, especially in market segments with downward pressure of prices (for example the building industry).

At the beginning, PVC was the only used polymer and wood fibres and flour were passive filler materials to reduce costs. Nowadays, polyolefins gain more and more importance and the wood-fibres are used as an active filler with high contents (wood is therefore now the dominant component in the mixtures).

Nearly all of the past R&D-work considered with wood plastic composites up to 70% wood (mostly <50%). In this project we tried to increase the wood content up to more than 90% wood.

The main goals of this project are

• Systematic work on the properties-matrix for these material family
• Optimization of the formulations
• Optimization of the properties and standardization of the wood-fibres
• Development of new processing technologies (direct feeding and dosing of wood fibres)
• Optimization of the complete processing technology
• Creation of the necessary technological and material Know-how for the production of competitive products

The technological problems have been solved in two separate projects - but connected with this project - ("Wood plastic composites - Development of a wood-fibre-direct-dosing unit" and "Wood plastic composites - Development of a extrusion tool") and these work was done by the industrial partners. Their results are also included in this project.

The profile geometry and the coarse recipe was also defined by industrial project partners as basis for the extrusion tool.

A lot of work has been done to develop methods for material characterization, fibre analysis, modifying wood-fibres, rheological characterization and so on.

Projectmanager

Dr. Wolfgang Stadlbauer
Upper Austrian Research GmbH - Transfercenter für Kunststofftechnik
Franz Fritsch Straße 11, A-4600 Wels
Tel.: +43 (0)7242 2088-1002
Fax: +43 (0)7242 2088-1020
E-Mail: wolfgang.stadlbauer@uar.at
Internet: http://www.uar.at/

Project- and co-operation partner

• Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, Institut für Chemie, Abteilung Physikalische Chemie
  Ao.Univ.Prof. Dr. Alois Schausberger
  Altenbergerstraße 69, A-4040 Linz
  Tel.: +43 (0)732 2468-0
  Fax: +43 (0)732 2468-28756
  E-Mail: alois.schausberger@jku.at
• Kompetenzzentrum Holz GmbH
  Dipl.Ing. Dr. Othmar Höglinger
  St. Peter Straße 25, A-4020 Linz
  Tel.: +43 (0)732 9015-5600
  Fax: +43 (0)732 9015-5618
  E-Mail: zentrale@kplus-wood.at
• Cincinnati Extrusion GmbH
  Hr. Erik Sehnal
  Laxenburgerstraße 246, A-1239 Wien
  Tel.: +43 (0)1 61006-191
  Fax: +43 (0)1 61006-191
  E-Mail: sehnal.e@cet-austria.com
• Greiner Extrusionstechnik GmbH
  Hr. Leopold Weiermayer
  Friedrich Schiedel Straße 1, A-4542 Nußbach
  Tel.: +43 (0)7587 504-0
  Fax: +43 (0)7587 7418
  E-Mail: leopold.weiermayer@grreiner-extrusion.at
• Trodat GmbH
  Dipl.Ing. Klemens Treml
  Linzerstraße 156, A-4600 Wels
  Tel.: +43 (0)7242 239-371
  Fax: +43 (0)7242 239-980
  E-Mail: klemens.treml@at.trodat.net
• IFN Internorm Bauelemente Ges.m.b.H Co KG
  Dipl.Ing. Dr. Hans-Peter Mattischek
  Ganglgutstraße 131, A-4050 Traun
  Tel.: +43 (0)7229 214-3418
  Fax: +43 (0)7229 214-3035
  E-Mail: hans-peter.mattischek@ifn-be.com