Thermal,crystallization, and dynamic rheological behavior of wood particle/HDPE composites: Effect of removal of wood cell wall composition

This study investigated the effect of removal of wood cell wall composition on thermal, crystallization, and dynamic rheological behavior of the resulting high density polyethylene (HDPE) composites. Four types of wood particle (WP) with different compositions: native wood flour (WF), hemicellulose‐removed wood particle (HR), lignin‐removed wood particle (holocellulose, HC), and both hemicellulose and lignin removed particle (α‐cellulose, αC) were prepared and compounded with HDPE using extruder, both with and without maleated polyethylene (MAPE). Results show that removal of the hemicellulose improved the thermal stability of composites, while removal of the lignin facilitated thermal decomposition. WPs acted as nucleating agents and facilitated the process of crystallization, thereby increasing the crystallization temperature and degree of crystallinity. The crystallization nucleation and growth rate of αC and HR based composites without MAPE decreased, as compared with WF based one. Composite melts with and without MAPE exhibited a decreasing order of storage modulus, loss modulus, and complex viscosity as αC > WF > HR > HC and αC > HR > WF > HC, respectively. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014 , 131, 40331.