doi:10.1177/0892705709355232

ABSTRACT: In this work we investigated the effect of incorporating wood fibers (bleached chemi-thermo-mechanical pulp of aspen, BCTMP) on the properties of a hybrid composite material made from maleated polypropylene (MAPP) and Nanoclay (NC) or not. The effects of morphological structure of polypropylene (PP) and the molecular weight (Mw) and maleic anhydride graft level (MA%) of MAPP were also performed to evaluate the improvements of each independent factor (MAPP, Dicumyl peroxide-DCP and NC). In our case, the size of wood fiber had little effect on the impact and tensile strength. High Mw and low MA % MAPP contributes homo-PP hybrids with better performance, either impact or tensile. In addition, wood fiber gives the hybrids, based on both homo-polypropylene (homo-PP) and co-polypropylene (co-PP), without the presence of coupling agent, similar behaviors of impact and tensile strengths. However, the impact and tensile strength of the hybrids mentioned above are improved in the presence of coupling agent. NC weakens the impact strength of composites with/without the reinforcement of wood fiber, coupling agent, and DCP. It shows different behaviors of tensile with improvement of tensile for hybrids with wood fiber, coupling agent, and DCP but impartation for nanocomposites without additives. Moreover, the behavior of tensile is in concordance to the changes of elongation as well as toughness. Furthermore, DCP leads to negative effects on the impact and tensile, as well as toughness of the hybrids when fiber is present, but exhibits better resistance deformation extension which is in concordance with the increase of modulus. In addition, there is a little increase in plasticity