Recycling and recovery of wood-thermoplastic composites

Composites with natural fibres are among the most rapidly growing areas within the plastics industry. They are manufactured by combining either wood or other natural fibers such as flax, hemp, jute or kenaf with polymers. The resulting composite can be easily processed into various shapes and can be recycled. The experiments were made to study the behavior of the wood flour-polypropylene composite during injection molding, and to what extent the mechanical properties deteriorate after several processing cycles, i.e. mechanical recycling. Regarding efficiency of energy recovery, the heating value of wood-thermoplastic composite with different contents of wood and thermoplastics was determined as well.