Research Progress on Fully Degradable Wood-plastic Composite Materials in China

In recent years, the utilization of renewable resources has received great attention. Among them, degradable plant fibers such as crop straw, after appropriate treatment, are compounded with degradable plastics such as polylactic acid to produce fully degradable and recyclable wood plastic materials (WPC), which has attracted attention at home and abroad. This article reviews the research progress of completely degradable WPC in China, aiming to provide a certain reference for further research and development of such materials.

Completely degradable plastic wood composite materials

WPC has been widely used in many fields such as municipal engineering and decoration. However, the traditional WPC matrix is non-degradable thermoplastic resin such as PE, PP and ABS.Although this type of WPC can be reprocessed and used, it has poor degradability.Using degradable resins such as polylactic acid as the matrix and degradable natural fibers as the reinforcing materials, the composite fully degradable WPC (D-WPC) can overcome the shortcomings of traditional WPC and achieve 100% degradability.

At present, most of the fully degradable wood-plastic composite materials developed in China use polylactic acid plastic as the matrix. The reason is analyzed that this kind of plastic has achieved mass production and has a wide production coverage. The bonding of the interface plays a decisive role in the performance of composite materials. Common methods to improve the bonding of the interface between the matrix and the fiber are to modify the fiber or solubilize the interface.Similar to other composite materials, surface and interface modifications are still mainly based on alkali treatment and coupling agent treatment, but at the same time, new modification methods such as esterified starch as a phase solvent and prepolymer coating have emerged.This enables the research on such materials to develop to a deeper and broader level.

In my country's newly formulated "National Medium and Long-term Science and Technology Development Plan (2006-2020)", "development of new bio-based materials and equipment with independent intellectual property rights" has been included as "comprehensive utilization of agricultural and forestry biomass" in the field of agriculture in my country. ” priority development issues. Researching fully degradable wood-plastic composite materials, while following the concept of green environmental protection, will also provide a new method for the reuse of discarded natural plant resources. It is a very meaningful task and is in line with the national development strategy.