European Journal of Wood and Wood Products

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00107-021-01694-2

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Nanocellulose preparation via a dissolution and regeneration

process and application to wood‐plastic composites as toughness
enhancement
Lu Zhang1 · Jinpeng Sun2 · Ruyan Li3 · Pan Chen1 · Ziqiang Shao1 · Wenjun Wang1

Received: 31 January 2020 / Accepted: 15 March 2021

© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2021

Abstract
In this work, nanocellulose (NC) was prepared by a new route consisting of dissolution of cellulose in phosphoric acid fol-
lowed by regeneration in water. To facilitate the dissolution, the cellulose was pre-treated with aqueous solution of urea.
Although the regenerated cellulose from water had been in nanoscale, its size could be further reduced through ball milling.
The composition, structure, and morphology of the materials from different preparation stages were studied by infrared
spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM), respectively. NC was then
incorporated into the HDPE based wood-plastic composites (WPCs) in a skillful way to guarantee its good dispersion. The
influence of addition content of NC on the mechanical and thermal properties of WPCs was investigated comprehensively.
WPCs incorporated with NC exhibited an obvious increase in impact strength compared with those without NC. In addition,
the Rockwell hardness, Vicat softening temperature and thermal stability of WPCs incorporated with NC were also cor-
respondingly improved. The effect of ball milling on the size of nanocellulose was also investigated. The application results
showed that the NC prepared without ball milling was more efficient in enhancing the toughness of WPCs.

1 Introduction Many studies have been conducted to improve the impact

Wood-plastic composites (WPCs), which are defined as a
combination of thermoplastic polymers and wood flour, have
become more prominent for the past few decades. They have
been widely utilized in the field of automotive, residential
construction and transportation industries (Ashori 2008; Li
et al. 2014; Smith and Wolcott 2006). Despite their numer-
ous advantages, such as ease of processing, low cost, envi-
ronmentally friendly, biodegradability and recyclability
(Kaseem et al. 2015), WPCs also have certain drawbacks,
such as low toughness, especially poor impact strength
(Chang et al. 2013; Sain et al. 2000), which constitute limi-
tations for more engineering applications.
* Wenjun Wang
wangwenjun@bit.edu.cn
1
School of Materials Science and Engineering, Beijing
Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China
2
College of Material and Engineering, North China Institute
of Aerospace Engineering, Langfang 065000, Hebei, China
3
College of Engineering, Shanghai Polytechnic University,
Shanghai 201209, China
toughness of WPCs. Yeh et al. (2013) added two types of
coupling agents into the polypropylene-based WPCs. The
addition of PP-g-MA increased the tensile strength and the
impact strength of WPCs; the Young’s modulus remained
essentially unchanged. By contrast, the same amount of
SEBS-g-MA had a greater effect on the impact strength,
but the Young’s modulus was reduced. Ashori and Nour-
bakhsh (2010) used microcrystalline cellulose as a reinforc-
ing agent for WPCs, and found that the impact strength of
WPCs achieved an obvious increase with sacrificing thermal
stability. Sheshmani et al. (2013) prepared wood flour/poly-
propylene (PP) composites filled with graphene nanoplate-
lets (GNPs) and pointed out that the addition of GNPs filler
moderately increased the tensile and flexural properties and
impact strength of WPCs, but GNPs were expensive, which
led to higher production costs of WPCs. Guo et al. (2018)
used thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and graft copoly-
mers (GC) as toughening agents for poplar wood flour/poly
(lactic acid) composites and achieved a satisfactory result.
Zhang et al. (2018) first chemically modified the bamboo
flour (BF) with alkyl ketene dimer (AKD) or alkali, and
then prepared BF/HDPE composites. They found that AKD
treatment was better than alkali treatment in improving

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the mechanical properties of BF/HDPE composites. The
above attempts (Guo et al. 2018; Zhang et al. 2018) proved
to be effective, to varying degree, in improving the impact
strength of WPCs, however, both of them involved a com-
plex chemical process.
In recent decades, the nanocellulose, another favoured
eco-friendly nanomaterial, has become the high-profile rein-
forced material, and has numerous successful application
examples for enhancing the properties of different polymers
(Bach and Vu 2019; Herrera et al. 2015; Parambath Kanoth
et al. 2015) due to its inherent high specific strength and
rigidity (Nakagaito and Yano 2008). However, their applica-
tion to WPCs has rarely been reported. Despite other con-
siderations, the application of nanocellulose to WPCs must
overcome two obstacles: (1) preparation in a scalable way in
order to lower the cost of nanocellulose; (2) guarantee of an
even dispersion of nanocellulose within WPCs.
Cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) and cellulose nanofibers
(CNFs) are the two types of most commonly used nano-
cellulose. In brief, the former is typically prepared by acid
hydrolysis and the latter usually by mechanical disintegra-
tion (Kargarzadeh et al. 2017). Both have problems of one
kind or another that constitute obstacles to large-scale prepa-
ration. For instance, high speed centrifugation is essential for
the separation and washing of CNCs; as CNFs preparation,
a high pressure homogenizer or an especial grinder, which
is of high-energy consumption, low-efficiency and easy to
be clogged, is always the necessity.
Li et al. (2016) used ultra-long CNFs, extracted from
poplar flour via chemical and mechanical treatments, to
reinforce WPCs. They developed a new method to solve the
aggregation problem of CNFs within HDPE. Compared with
WPC without CNF, the flexural strength, flexural modulus
and impact strength of WPC with 20 wt% CNFs increased by
93.01%, 153.64% and 116.55%, respectively. Nevertheless,
the CNFs and WPCs are prepared in such a complicated and
high-cost way that included chemical treatments, repetitively
grinding, freeze-drying and expensive instrument (HAKKE
minilab), so this method is suitable only for laboratory inves-
tigation, not for industrial production.
Lu et  al. (2015) tried to develop a new route to pre-
pare nanocellulose. They manufactured bamboo cellulose
nanocrystals via a mechanochemical approach, i.e. first dis-
solving bamboo cellulose in phosphoric acid assisted by ball
milling. Secondly, pouring the resultant solution into water,
then washing with water to a constant pH. Neglecting the
terrible corrosion caused by phosphoric acid to the ball mill-
ing pot, this method is still low-efficient because of the usage
of high-speed centrifugations. Hao et al. (2015) proposed a
“green” method for preparing self-assembled nanostructured
cellulose by dissolution and regeneration processes, in which
those steps, such as high-speed centrifugation, dialysis and
homogenization, still could not be avoided.
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European Journal of Wood and Wood Products
Attempts have been made to directly dissolve cellulose
in phosphoric acid without urea pretreatment. However, the
comparison results showed that the pretreatment on cellulose
could significantly reduce its dissolution time. The choice of
pretreatment condition was based on a previous work (Wang
et al. 2011). After pretreatment, the cellulose fiber swelled
(Wernersson et al. 2015), which increased its contact area
with phosphoric acid, thereby promoting its dissolution.
Based on the above methods, a preparation method for
nanocellulose (NC) via a dissolution and regeneration pro-
cess was proposed, and in order to overcome the dispersion
problem of NC within WPCs, a simple and skillful operation
was adopted to incorporate NC into WPCs. Moreover, the
mechanical and thermal properties of WPCs with different
content of NC were investigated in detail.
2 Materials and methods
2.1 Materials
The cotton linter (DP = 800–1000) was supplied by Northern
Nitrocellulose Co., Ltd. (Sichuan, China). Urea and phos-
phoric acid ­(H3PO4 85 wt%) were purchased from Guangfu
Technology Development Co., Ltd. (Tianjin, China). Euca-
lyptus wood flour (WF, 60–80 meshes, 0.18–0.25 mm) and
polyethylene grafting maleic anhydride (MAPE) were pro-
vided by Yunnan Kanghe Wood Plastic Technology Co.,
Ltd. (Yunnan, China). The wood flour was dried at 105 ± 2
°C for 24 h before use. High density polyethylene (HDPE,
DMDA-8920) with a density of 0.954 g/cm3 and a melt flow
index of 20 g/10 min (190 °C, 2.16 kg) was purchased from
Petro China Co., Ltd., China.
2.2 Preparation of NC
The cotton linter was pre-treated as follows: the cotton linter
was immersed into an 8 wt% aqueous solution of urea at 0
°C for 1 h, with a mass ratio of 1:50 for cotton linter and urea
solution, and then washed with water repeatedly.
Dissolution and regeneration of cellulose: the pretreated
cotton linter was dissolved in phosphoric acid at 50 °C for
2.5 h, with a mass ratio of 1:2:50 for cotton linter, water
and 85 wt% phosphoric acid. Then, the resultant solution
was poured into water to regenerate under continuous stir-
ring (about 800 rpm). The regenerated cellulose was washed
repeatedly with water until a constant pH value was reached.
An omnidirectional planetary ball mill (QXQM-6,
Changsha Tianchuang Powder Technology Co., Ltd., China)
was used to adjust the size of regenerated nanocellulose. To
distinguish the nanocellulose before and after ball milling,
the former was labeled as NC-a, and the latter as NC-b.
European Journal of Wood and Wood Products

2.3 Premixing of NC aqueous suspension with wood
flour
A portion of wood flour was poured into the sonicated nano-
cellulose aqueous suspension under continuous stirring for
30 min in a ratio of 1 g: 10 mL for wood flour to nanocellu-
lose aqueous suspension. Thereafter, the mixture was dried
at 105 ± 2 °C to a constant weight.
2.4 Fabrication of WPCs
Composition and labels of the WPCs samples are given in
Table 1. The above pre-mixture and the remaining composition
materials were mixed in a high-speed mixer (KSML110.2.1-G,
Kunshan Magnesium Precision Machinery Co., Ltd., China)
before being fed into the co-rotating twin screw extruder (KS-
20, Kunshan Kexin Rubber & Plastic Machinery Co., Ltd.,
China) for granulation. The successive chambers and die tem-
peratures of the extruder were 140, 160, 180, 180, 180, 170,
and 150 ℃, respectively. The screw speed was set at 80 rpm.
The testing samples were prepared on a micro injector (DRV4-
35, Shenzhen Derun Machinery Co., Ltd., China) at a condi-
tion of 180 °C and 9 MPa. Figure 1 demonstrates the whole
process for the preparation of WPCs samples.
2.5 Characterization
2.5.1 Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR)
The materials achieved in different stages of nanocellulose
preparation were measured by Fourier transform infrared
spectroscopy (FTIR) with a Nicolet 6700 infrared spectrom-
eter (USA). The resolution of 4 ­cm-1 and the number of scans
of 16 times were employed. The dried powders were meas-
ured by using a KBr compression method in the range of
4000–500 ­cm-1.
2.5.2 X‑ray diffraction (XRD)

The crystallization phases of the various intermediates and

Table 1  Composition and labels of the WPCs samples final products during preparation of nanocellulose were tested
Sample labels WF HDPE MAPE NC-a NC-b on a D8 Advance X-ray diffractometer with Cu Ka radiation
(wavelength = 0.154 nm). The crystallinity index (CrI) was
WPC/NC0.0 50 50 3 0 0
calculated according to Eq. (1):
WPC/NC-b1.0 50 50 3 0 1
WPC/NC-b2.0 50 50 3 0 2 Fc
WPC/NC-b3.0 50 50 3 0 3
CrI = × 100% (1)
Fc + Fa
WPC/NC-b4.0 50 50 3 0 4
WPC/NC-a2.0 50 50 3 2 0

Fig. 1  Schematic diagram of the preparation of WPCs

13

where Fc and Fa are the area of the crystal and non-crystal
regions, respectively.
2.5.3 Transmission electron microscope (TEM)
Morphology of the nanocellulose was observed on a trans-
mission electron microscope (JEM-200CX, Japan Elec-
tronics Corporation) at an accelerating voltage of 120 kV. A
drop of diluted NC aqueous suspension was deposited on a
carbon-coated grid and then stained with a 2% (w/v) aqueous
solution of uranyl acetate.
2.5.4 Mechanical properties
The tensile and flexural tests were carried out on a univer-
sal material testing machine (GMT-4104, Zhuhai Sansi Test
Equipment Co., Ltd., China). The tensile test was carried out
according to the standard of ASTM D 3039-07 with a cross-
head speed of 2 mm/min. The specimens of dog-bone shape
with a size of 75 × 5 × 2 mm and gage length of 25 mm were
used. The extensometer was connected to the universal mate-
rial testing machine for measuring the strain of the speci-
mens. The collected stress and strain signals were displayed
in a coordinate system by computer control software. The
flexural test was carried out according to ASTM D 790-10
with a crosshead speed of 2 mm/min. The size of the flex-
ural specimens was 80 × 10 × 4 mm. The impact strength was
measured according to GB/T 1043.1-2008 with a pendulum
impact testing machine (Shenzhen Sansi Vertical and Hori-
zontal Technology Co., Ltd., China). The size of the testing
specimens was 80 × 10 × 4 mm. All the tests were performed
at 23 °C and 40% relative humidity. At least five replications
were tested for each formulation, and an average value was
reported for all the above tests.
2.5.5 Rockwell hardness (RH)
The Rockwell hardness was measured by using a TH320 Full
Rockwell hardness tester (Beijing Times Peak Technology
Co., Ltd.) according to ISO 6508. At least eight replications
were tested for each formulation, and an average value was
reported.
2.5.6 Scanning electron microscopy (SEM)
The fracture surface morphology of the WPCs was observed
on a field emission scanning electron microscope (Hitachi
S-4800, Hitachi, Ltd., Japan). An acceleration voltage of
5 kV and coating current of 10 mA were used. The fracture
surfaces of the WPCs were sputter-coated with gold before
observation.
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European Journal of Wood and Wood Products
2.5.7 Vicat softening temperature (VST)
The Vicat softening temperature was measured by using
a XRW-300 M testing machine (Chengde Jinjian Testing
Instrument Co., Ltd.) according to ASTM D1525 standard
at a heating rate of 2 °C/min and load of 50 N.
2.5.8 Thermal analysis (TG)
The thermal stability of the WPCs was investigated on a syn-
chronous thermal analyser (NETZSCH STA 449 F3, Ger-
many) under nitrogen ambience at a heating rate of 10 °C/
min from room temperature to 600 °C.
3 Results and discussion
3.1 Preparation of NC
The FTIR spectrum and XRD patterns of the cotton linter
and materials obtained during different stages of nanocel-
lulose preparation are shown in Fig. 2.
Compared with that of the original cotton linter, the FTIR
spectra and XRD pattern of the cotton linter treated with 8
wt% aqueous solution of urea remain unchanged. According
to a previous work (Wang et al. 2011), after such a treatment,
the average diameter of the cotton linter fibres increased
from 16.57 to 23.91 μm. Thus, the treatment resulted in an
obvious swelling of cotton linters, but did not cause any
chemical and crystallinity changes. According to Chen et al.
(2017), in the aqueous solution of urea, urea was adsorbed
on the cellulose surfaces and interacted directly with cel-
lulose via weak hydrogen bonding interactions (see Fig. 3).
During the washing process, the free urea molecules in bulk
solution were removed, but those absorbed on the surface of
cellulose were still there. According to the simulated system,
the nitrogen content in the treated cotton linter was about
0.05%, which was too low to be detected by FTIR. However,
their presence could weaken the hydrophobic interactions
between cellulose molecular chains and promote the dis-
solution of cellulose in phosphoric acid, which was also the
reason for urea pretreatment.
In the FTIR spectra of regenerated nanocellulose before
ball milling, no absorption peak corresponding to P = O
appears. During dissolution of cellulose in phosphoric acid,
an esterification reaction between hydroxyl groups of cel-
lulose and phosphoric acid occurred and formed cellulose
phosphate, whereas in the regeneration process, the cellulose
phosphate was reversibly converted back to free phosphoric
acid and cellulose.
In the XRD pattern of regenerated nanocellulose before
ball milling, two new peaks appear at 2θ = 12.1° and 20.1°
corresponding to (1–10) and (110) crystal face of cellulose
European Journal of Wood and Wood Products
Fig. 2  FTIR spectrum (A) and XRD patterns (B) of the materials obtained from different stages of nanocellulose preparation: cotton linter (a);
cotton linter after treatment with urea (b); regenerated NC before (c) and after (d) ball milling
Fig. 3  Graphical representation
of a simulated system for urea
adsorption on cellulose surfaces
(each elementary fibril of the
cotton linter contained 18 cel-
lulose molecule chains)
II, respectively (French 2014). It can be inferred that cel-
lulose I and cellulose II coexisted in the regenerated nano-
cellulose. Studies showed that the dissolution of cellulose
in phosphoric acid involved an initial decrystallization
and depolymerization reaction (Wei et al. 1996). When
the reaction was quenched with water, cellulose regener-
ated and formed cellulose crystals. The results of Vijay
et al. (2000) suggested that during the water regeneration
process, a mixture of cellulose II and cellulose I was pro-
duced at low agitation rates (700 –1000 rpm), whereas an
higher agitation rate (~ 4000 rpm) favored the formation
of cellulose II exclusively. The crystallinity of regenerated
nanocellulose decreased from 74.7% of the cotton linter
to 72.5%.
It can be seen from Fig. 2a that ball milling does not
change the chemical structure of the nanocellulose. How-
ever, in Fig. 2b, several new peaks appear at 2θ = 25.5°,
30.2° and 37.7°, respectively. These peaks are also attributed
to cellulose I and cellulose II (French 2014). The crystal-
linity of the nanocellulose after ball milling is calculated
as 69.2%, because the mechanical stress during ball mill-
ing may partially destroy the crystal structure of cellulose
(Zhang et al. 2019; Zheng et al. 2018).
The TEM images of the regenerated nanocellulose
before and after ball milling are shown in Fig. 4. The
regenerated nanocellulose before ball milling exhibited as
a stacked and entangled network, with an average diam-
eter of 30–50 nm and an average length of 1000–5000 nm.
By the process of dissolution and regeneration, nanocel-
lulose was successfully prepared.
In brief, during the entire preparation process of nano-
cellulose, no special instrument or equipment, such as
high-speed centrifuges, high-pressure homogenizers,
grinders, or expensive chemical reagents was used, so the
preparation was of high-efficiency and low-cost. Besides,
on account of a small quantity of unavoidable material
loss, the yield of nanocellulose was approximately 80%.
The size of the regenerated nanocellulose can be further
refined by ball milling. Figure 4b shows the difference. It
can be seen that the diameter and length of nanocellulose
fibers became smaller and the entangled filament opened.
The effect of the size of nanocellulose on the properties of
WPCs was investigated.
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 European Journal of Wood and Wood Products

Fig. 4  TEM images of the

regenerated nanocellulose
before (a) and after (b) ball
milling

3.2 Properties of the WPCs modified demonstrated in Sect. 2.3 was effective in guaranteeing a

with nanocellulose good dispersion of nanocellulose within the WPCs matrix,
and which was just the main reason for the impact strength
3.2.1 Mechanical properties improvement of WPCs with nanocellulose.

Table 2 lists the mechanical properties of WPCs with dif-

3.2.2 Rockwell hardness
ferent NC content. Compared with that of WPC without
NC (WPC/NC0.0), the tensile strength and tensile modulus
The Rockwell hardness values of WPCs with different con-
of WPCs incorporated with NC remained unchanged, the
tent of NC are shown in Table 2. Compared with the WPC
flexural strength and flexural modulus achieved a moder-
without NC, the Rockwell hardness of the WPCs incor-
ate improvement, whereas the impact strength significantly
porated with NC experienced a significant increase, and
improved. The maximum impact strength appeared at the
reached their maximum at an addition level of 3.0 wt%. It
addition amount of 3.0%.
can be deduced that the NC fibres acted as stiff “anchors”
Compared with NC-b, NC-a proved to be more effective
within the WPCs matrix, which limited the movement of the
in improving the mechanical properties of WPCs. With the
polymer molecular chains to some extent and increased the
same addition level (2.0 wt%), the impact strength of WPC
rigidity of the polymer matrix.
incorporated with NC-a was 13.0% higher than that of NC-b.
Considering the mechanical properties, ball milling can be
omitted. 3.2.3 Thermal properties
Figure 5 shows the SEM micrographs of the impact frac-
ture surface of WPCs with different NC content. Compared 3.2.3.1  Vicat softening temperature The Vicat softening
with that of WPC without NC (Fig. 5a), the impact fracture temperature is an important indicator to evaluate the heat
surface of WPCs incorporated with NC was evenly distrib- resistance of polymeric materials. The Vicat softening tem-
uted with many “small white dots”. The transverse size of perature data of WPCs with different NC content are shown
these “small white dots” was about 100 nm, estimated from in Table  3. In contrast to that of WPC/NC0.0, the Vicat
Fig. 5b–f, Hereby these “small white dots” were identi- softening temperature of the WPCs incorporated with NC
fied as nanocellulose. This verified that the premixing step slightly increased.

Table 2  Mechanical properties of WPCs with different NC content

Sample ID Tensile strength Tensile modulus Flexural strength Flexural Impact strength (kJ/ Rockwell hardness
(MPa) (GPa) (MPa) modulus m2)
(GPa)

WPC/NC0.0 44.57 ± 0.83 1.10 ± 0.04 53.52 ± 0.28 2.99 ± 0.06 11.08 ± 0.82 59.37 ± 0.50

WPC/NC-b1.0 45.11 ± 0.21 1.18 ± 0.04 55.77 ± 0.51 3.29 ± 0.04 13.31 ± 0.68 70.07 ± 0.73
WPC/NC-b2.0 45.65 ± 0.63 1.21 ± 0.06 57.84 ± 0.87 3.39 ± 0.07 14.25 ± 0.25 70.30 ± 0.52
WPC/NC-b3.0 46.17 ± 0.53 1.15 ± 0.08 59.78 ± 0.27 3.67 ± 0.08 18.25 ± 0.47 74.67 ± 0.47
WPC/NC-b4.0 45.30 ± 0.64 1.16 ± 0.06 58.22 ± 0.53 3.49 ± 0.09 14.10 ± 0.39 69.57 ± 0.58
WPC/NC-a2.0 45.60 ± 0.44 1.13 ± 0.07 62.50 ± 0.29 3.47 ± 0.07 18.46 ± 0.56 74.53 ± 0.65

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European Journal of Wood and Wood Products

Fig. 5  SEM images of WPCs with different NC content: WPC/NC0.0 (a); WPC/NC-b1.0 (b); WPC/NC-b2.0 (c); WPC/NC-b3.0 (d); WPC/
NC-b4.0 (e); WPC/NC-a2.0 (f)

Fig. 6  TGA (a) and DTG (b) curves of WPCs with different NC content

3.2.3.2  Thermogravimetric analysis Figure  6 shows the

TGA and the DTG curves of WPCs with different NC con-
tents. The thermogravimetric data are shown in Table 3.
Table 3  Data related to the thermal properties of WPCs with different
It can be seen from Fig. 6a that the weight loss of WPCs
NC content
can mainly be divided into three stages. The weight loss
of the WPCs in the first stage (below 270 °C) was mainly Sample ID Vicat softening Thermogravimetric data
temperature (℃)
caused by the release of water and small molecule com- Tonset (℃) Tp1 (℃) Tp2 (℃)
pounds. The weight loss in the second stage (270–380 °C)
WPC/NC0.0 90.0 272.7 355.1 475.6
was attributed to the thermal decomposition of the wood
WPC/NC-b1.0 91.4 282.9 358.6 479.2
fibers. In the third stage (430–500 °C), the weight loss was
WPC/NC-b2.0 92.3 288.3 358.9 480.0
remarkable, which was attributed to the thermal decompo-
WPC/NC-b3.0 95.2 288.5 357.8 478.0
sition of the HDPE matrix. The thermal decomposition of
WPC/NC-b4.0 92.8 287.0 356.5 476.4
WPCs was completed at approximately 500 °C.
WPC/NC-a2.0 91.8 287.7 355.5 478.4

13

It could be seen from Table 3 that the onset decomposi-
tion temperature of the WPCs incorporated with NC was
evidently elevated as compared with WPC/NC0.0. The small
size of NC may fill the gap between wood particles in the
WPCs and prohibited the release of volatile products dur-
ing thermal decomposition of WPCs materials. Moreover,
as the content of NC increases, strong interaction between
NC and HDPE chains could restrict chain movement and
consequently hinder the transport of free radicals produced
from HDPE matrix during thermal degradation (Farhadine-
jad et al. 2012).
4 Conclusion
In this study, the nanocellulose (NC) was prepared via a
process of dissolution and regeneration. Further, the NC was
skillfully incorporated into HDPE based WPCs to guaran-
tee a good dispersion of NC within WPCs matrix, and thus
resulted in a significant increase in impact strength. Further-
more, the Rockwell hardness, Vicat softening temperature
and thermal stability of WPCs incorporated with NC were
simultaneously improved. In summary, this work provided
an efficient route for preparation of NC and its application
to WPCs.
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