WPC from bioplastic and pulp fibres

During autumn this material will be launched by the Swedish company Södra Skogsägarna Ekonomisk Förening from Väröbacka under the name DuraPulp. The material is renewable, shows good mechanical properties, a perceived naturalness, nice tactile properties, and can be dyed in bright colours. The material will be offered by Södra in the form of composite pulp bales. One limiting factor though is that there today is no industrially viable production process available for producing the material into granules for injection moulding. The research project MouldPulp intends to change this. The aim of the three-year research project is the development of a processing technology that allows making injection moulded parts out of DuraPulp but keeping the natural material characteristics.

A multidisciplinary team led by the Fraunhofer-Institute Umsicht, Oberhausen, Germany, is working on this. The technical approach is to combine the DuraPulp process with a special compounding process. The objective is to achieve a high fibre amount and at the same time a gentle compounding process and homogeneous fibre dispersion. Afterwards, the granules will be injection moulded to sample specimens and technical parts. The material properties and moulded parts characteristics will be tested and evaluated. A recycling concept with the separation of polymer and fibres will be explored. The project consortium consists of Fraunhofer-Institute Umsicht, Innventia, Södra, FKuR Kunststoff GmbH, Willich, Germany, Elastopoli Oy, Sastamala, Finland, Hammarplast Consumer AB, Tingsryd, Sweden, and ­nova-Institut GmbH, Hürth, Germany.