Study of Thermal and Mechanical Properties of Microcrystalline Cellulose and Nanocrystalline Cellulose Based Thermoplastic Material

Polymer industries highly use thermoplastic polymer materials due to their low cost and attractive physical, mechanical and thermal properties. Polypropylene (PP) is the widely used thermoplastic material in the world today. Various developmental research works have been conducted by many researchers to improve the thermal and mechanical properties of polypropylene based composites materials. Cellulose can be used as a reinforcement agent in polypropylene based composites. In this research work, microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) reinforced and nanocrystalline cellulose (NCC) reinforced polypropylene based composites were prepared. The MCC and NCC were subjected to the surface modification to improve compatibility with the polypropylene. Surface modified MCC and NCC were mixed with polypropylene using laboratory scale internal mixture. Test samples based on MCC and NCC mixed with polypropylene were prepared by using compression molding technique. Tensile, impact, hardness and water absorption tests were performed in order to analyze the physical and mechanical properties. Scanning electron microscopic images, Fourier-transform infrared spectra and Differential Thermal Analysis were used to characterize developed composites. Samples containing NCC showed the increase of tensile strength and hardness with compared to samples containing pure polypropylene and MCC. Samples containing NCC and MCC showed the slightly reduction of thermal stability than pure polypropylene. However, NCC with polypropylene samples showed the higher thermal stability than MCC with polypropylene samples.