Life cycle assessment of wood-fibre-reinforced polypropylene composites

被引:116
作者
Xu, Xun [1 ]
Jayaraman, Krishnan [1 ]
Morin, Caroline [2 ]
Pecqueux, Nicolas [2 ]
机构
[1] Univ Auckland, Dept Mech Engn, Auckland 1142, New Zealand
[2] IFMA, F-63175 Aubiere, France
关键词
wood-fibre; polypropylene; composite; life cycle assessment; natural fibre composite;
D O I
10.1016/j.jmatprotec.2007.06.087
中图分类号
T [工业技术];
学科分类号
08 ;
摘要
Composites of polymers reinforced with natural fibres have received increasing attention. Natural fibres such as sisal, flax, jute and wood-fibres possess good reinforcing capability when properly compounded with polymers. These natural fibre-reinforced composites find a wide array of applications in the building and construction industry and the automobile industry The use of natural fibres in composite materials does not automatically make it a "sustainable material", i.e. "natural" may not necessarily equal "environment friendly". The literature in the field of natural fibre-reinforced composites with respect to their environmental standing is reviewed in this paper. A life cycle assessment has been carried out for wood-fibre-reinforced polypropylene composite preforms produced by compression moulding in comparison with those of polypropylene. Three levels of fibre contents, 10%, 30% and 50% by mass, have been used. The level of environmental impact caused by transportation is also studied. This study introduces a new term called "material service density", which is defined as the volume of material satisfying a specific strength requirement (tensile strength in this study). The rationale behind this is that specific volumes of different materials are required to withstand a given mechanical load (tensile load in this case). Comparison of the material service density for two materials: wood-fibre-reinforced composite and polypropylene are conducted. The results showed that when material service density is used as the functional unit, wood-fibre-reinforced composite demonstrated superior environmental friendliness compared to polypropylene. (c) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
引用
收藏
页码:168 / 177
页数:10
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