Study of thermal properties of biodegradable composite materials based on recycled polypropylene

Abstract

Recently, the development of modern technology for producing biodegradable polymers is one of the most topical issues. Filling the polymer with natural components increases the interfacial contact boundary, through which moisture and aggressive chemicals can penetrate into the material, which accelerates the decomposition of the composite in natural conditions. This study is devoted to the study of the thermophysical properties of biodegradable composite materials based on recycled polypropylene with various natural fillers of plant origin. In this work, we measured the thermal conductivity and resistivity depending on temperature, filler concentration and residence time in the recovered soil in which the samples were biodegraded, shows the relationship between the change in thermal conductivity and resistivity of the studied samples and proposed preliminary conclusions about the mechanisms of thermal conductivity of the materials considered. Adding natural fillers of plant origin to composites based on recycled polypropylene gradually increases the thermal conductivity coefficient with increasing filler content. In this case, the resistivity decreases, and, with an increase in the content of the filler, this decrease becomes more significant. This means that with an increase in conductivity, the coefficient of thermal conductivity also increases, which is typical for materials in which charge transfer occurs at the expense of electrons. As a result of destruction under the influence of the environment, the thermal conductivity of the samples decreases, and the change is most significant for samples with a high content of filler.