title: Natural polymer biocomposites produced from processing raw wood flour by severe shear deformation.
abstract: Wood flour (WF) based natural polymer biocomposites were produced using the equal channel angular pressing (ECAP) technique. The wood particle structures were disrupted and the cellulose crystallinity was decreased while bulk materials were formed with continuous phase structures by the severe shear-deformation during ECAP. The mechanical properties of the processed WF materials were enhanced when the processing temperature was increased due to enhanced intermolecular interactions and thermal crosslinking reactions among WF components. The processing capability was improved by using wheat gluten (WG) as additives, leading to significantly reduced processing temperature. Effective chain penetration and strong intermolecular interactions in conjunction with chemical crosslinking occurred between WG and the amorphous components in WF. However, the thermal decomposition of the WG component also occurred at increased temperatures, resulting in a decrease in the mechanical strength of the WF/WG composites. The result has demonstrated that ECAP is a promising methodology to produce renewable and degradable biocomposites from wood waste.
authors.affiliation: CSIRO Materials Science and Engineering, Private Bag 33, Clayton South MDC, VIC 3169, Australia. Electronic address: Xiaoqing.Zhang@csiro.au.
authors.forename: Xiaoqing
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia.
authors.forename: Xiaolin
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia.
authors.forename: Hengky
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Haryono
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia. Electronic address: K.Xia@unimelb.edu.au.
authors.forename: Kenong
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Xia
mesh_terms: D005983:Glutens / Q000737:chemistry; D055595:Mechanical Phenomena; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D013696:Temperature; D014908:Triticum; D014934:Wood / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D011108:Polymers; D005983:Glutens
keywords: Biocomposites; Mechanical properties; Natural polymer; Phase structures; Powder processing