Know more

The COMPOSENS team relies on the complementarity of 7 partners: Certech, ULg-GxABT and ValBiom on the Walloon side, UMR FARE, CRITT MDTS, IMT Lille Douai and Armines on the French side. The project counts on the support of the FEDER as well as of Wallonia, the Grand Est region and the Ardennes Département.

As part of the INTERREG Composens project in which FARE is a partner, the role of the polarity of polymers on the rupture mechanism and the rheological behavior of composites based on lignocellulosic fibers was studied. By extruding under the same conditions composites based on flax and hemp with a non-polar petro-sourced matrix (polypropylene, noted PP, associated with maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene, noted PP-g-MA) and a bio-sourced matrix (polybutylene succinate, noted PBS) of similar viscosity, it has been shown that fiber breakage is greater with the polar matrix.

All these results can be interpreted by a better affinity between the lignocellulosic fibers and the PBS matrix. To validate this hypothesis, the adhesion properties between nanocrystalline cellulose and various surfaces (PP alone, PP / PP-g-MA, PBS) were characterized by atomic force microscopy measurements (measurements at the nanometric scale). Higher adhesion strengths were confirmed with PBS, followed by PP / PP-g-MA and finally PP. This innovative result had not yet been observed in the bibliography and was the subject of the following publication.

Contact : Pr Françoise Berzin, francoise.berzin@univ-reims.fr

Publication: Berzin F, Lemkhanter L, Marcuello C, Chabbert B, Aguié-Béghin V, Molinari M, Castellani R, Vergnes B*. Influence of the polarity of the matrix on the breakage mechanisms of lignocellulosic fibers during twin-screw extrusion. Polymer Composites 2020, 41, 1106–1117. DOI

COMPOSENS project website: https://composens.eu/le-projet/