Poly(vinyl chloride) and wood flour press mould composites: New bonding strategies

In this work, different strategies for improving the association between hydrophilic wood flour surfaces and poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) hydrophobic surfaces were tested. Three new coupling agents, based on living radical polymerisation (LRP), involving PVC were synthesised and tested in formulations with PVC and wood flour. The melt mixing behaviour was analysed in terms of the torque exerted by the mixing blades and related to the structural properties of the mixture. These products were ground and sheets were produced by press moulding. The composites were characterised by dynamic mechanical analysis. It was found that the use of a new block copolymer poly(vinyl chloride)-b-poly(hydroxy- propyl acrylate)-b-poly(vinyl chloride), prepared by LRP, increases the elastic modulus of the composite, under con- trolled conditions, involving the use of specific amounts of the copolymer. V C 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 113: 2727-2738, 2009