Preparation And Properties Study Of HDPE/Wood Foamed Composite

The wood-plastic composite(WPC) is based on the wood fiber and the plastics with additives. This kind of material integrates the merits and overcomes the demerits of the wood and plastics. Besides, the material, which can be made by the waste wood and plastics, also plays a positive role in the environment protection.Presently, the foamed wood-plastics composites are mostly based on PVC. High density polyethylene(HDPE) is the most used plastics in our life, so in this article HDPE was used as the matrix to study its processing condition, mechanical property and the structure of the foams.In this article the two roll mill was used to mix the HDPE, wood powder and other additives. The foamed composites were made in the flat vulcanizer. The appropriate conditions on the two roll mill were studied. The key factor was temperature control, because the AC’s decomposing temperature was close to the melting point of the compatibilizer. The results showed that it was appropriate to mix the raw materials at165℃and put the foaming agents into the system finally. The temperature was160℃with the pressure of20MPa on the flat vulcanizer to make the foamed composite.The influence of the compatibilizer MAPE(PE grafted with with maleic anhydrid) to the mean diameter’s distribution of the foams and the mechanical properties of the foamed material were studied. The results showed that MAPE could make the diameter of the foams more scattered, and there was the maximum flexural strength and unnotched impact strength with5%MAPE.The influence of the crosslinker DCP(dicumyl peroxide) to the diameter distribution of the foams and the mechanical properties of the material were studied. The use of DCP could inhibit the foaming process.The number of foams decreased obviously when there was0.15%of DCP in the material, and there was no foam when the content of DCP reached0.2%. But the use of DCP could make the diameter distribution of the foams more homogeneous, and could obviously increase the unnotched impact strength.