Effect of fire retardants on surface roughness and wettability of wood plastic composite panels

Abstract

Surface roughness and wettability of flat-pressed wood plastic composites (WPCs) incorporated with various fire retardants (FRs) (5, 10, or 15% by weight (wt)) at 50 wt-% content of the wood flour (WF) were investigated. The most common FRs, zinc borate (ZB), magnesium hydroxide (MH), and ammonium polyphosphate (APP), were used in the experiments. The WPC panels were made from dry-blended wood flour (WF), fire retardant (FR) powder, and polypropylene (PP) powder with maleic anhydride-grafted PP (2 wt-%) formulations using a conventional flat-pressing process under laboratory conditions. The contact angle measurements were obtained by using a goniometer connected with a digital camera and computer system. Three roughness measurements, average roughness (Ra), mean peak-to-valley height (Rz), and maximum roughness (Ry), were taken from the WPC panel surface using a fine stylus tracing technique. It was found that the surface smoothness of the WPC panels decreased with increasing content of the FR powder while the wettability increased. The control WPC panel without the FR had the smoothest surface, followed by the WPC panels containing the MH, ZB, and APP, respectively.