Thermal Characterizations of Wood Flour/Starch Cellulose Acetate Compounds

Abstract

Thermogravity analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) analysis, as well as dynamic thermal analysis (DMA), were carried out to study the interfacial interaction between wood flour (WF) and starch/cellulose acetate (SCA) blend. It was found that the main components in the compounds, namely, starch, cellulose, and cellulose acetate, started to decompose at around 330°C, a characteristic temperature for breaking glycoside-linked glucose units. Complexation of lignin in WF with amylose in SCA occurred during compounding, which gave rise to new crystallites that have a melting point of around 160°C. Hydrogen bonding is believed to play a key role in the crystallization. With increasing WF content, both the glass transition temperature and softening temperature increase as a result of the restricted molecular chain mobility imposed by rigid cellulose filaments. In addition, the DMA data revealed that amylose can occur as linkages in the crystallites. All these observations indicated that the interfacial adhesion between SCA and WF is relatively strong, even in absence of a coupling agent.