Characteristics of paper mill sludge-wood fiber-high-density polyethylene composites

Paper mill sludge (PMS) is a waste material from pulping. In this article it was used to replace part of a wood fiber (WF) filler to reinforce high-density polyethylene (HDPE). The properties of the PMS/WF/HDPE composites were investigated. When half of WF was replaced with PMS, the bending strength and modulus of WF/HDPE composites decreased by 16.08% and 29.91%, respectively, but their impact strength increased by 11.31%. Dynamic mechanical analysis demonstrated that with PMS addition, the storage modulus decreased and the loss tangent increased. Although the flexural properties of the PMS/WF/HDPE composites decreased compared to WF/HDPE composite, they still had satisfactorily high strengths. The 30:30:36 PMS/WF/HDPE composite presented bending and impact strengths of 61.00 MPa and 12.11 kJ m-2, respectively. The 50:20:26 PMS/WF/HDPE composite presented bending and impact strengths of 55.02 MPa and 10.37 kJ m-2, respectively. Rheological test proved that substituting part of WF with PMS would not affectmanufacture processing. This study indicated that paper mill sludge could be used in wood plastic composites, which would reduce pollution from paper manufacturing. POLYM. COMPOS., 2012. degrees 2012 Society of Plastics Engineers