Evaluation of lignocellulosic materials in the production of polymer composites existing in the Giresun province

Environmental pollution has been major problem due to rapid population growth and industrialization in the world. The importance of utilization of renewable resources has increased in parallel with these developments. As one of the renewable resource, wood and wood products have widely been used in industry. These materials have advantages of being environmentally friendly and renewable. The countries that have less forest assets like Turkey use alternative annual plants instead of wood. This provides a great deal of benefit to the economy of the country. The aim of this study was to investigate the mechanical and biological performance, thermal degradation and morphology of wood-plastic composites (WPCs) made from recycled high-density polyethylene and nutshell flour (NSF). Polymer composites were formed by single screw extrusion compounding. All polymer composites formulations were compression molded into a hot press for 3 min at 170 ºC. Compression molded composites were prepared from NSF and recycled high density polyethylene (R-HDPE) with and without maleic anhydride-grafted polyethylene (MAPE) at 30, 40, 50 and 60 wt % contents of the NSF. One white rot fungus, Trametes versicolor L.Pilat (Mad-697), one brown rot fungi, Postia placenta (Fr.) M.J. Larsen & Lombard (Mad-698-R) were used for the decay tests. The surfaces of the WPC samples manufactured were examined with a scanning electron microscope (SEM).The presence of NSF in the WPC samples resulted in degradation at lower temperatures compared to the R-HDPE. Biological resistance was negatively affected addition with NSF in composites. The flexural and tensile modulus of the composites significantly increased with increasing the filler content while the flexural and tensile strength significantly decreased. The MAPE improved the interfacial adhesion between nutshell flour and polymer matrix. This study demonstrate that NSF has the potential to be effectively recycled as filler in HDPE composites.