Innovating routes for the reused of PP-flax and PP-glass non woven composites: A comparative study


The significant industrial development of non-woven biocomposites requires the implementation of environmentally and economically coherent end-of-life recycling solutions. In this study, we studied the recycling of a non-woven poly-(propylene)-flax composite by injection but also by thermo compression. For comparison, a material with the same architecture but reinforced by glass fibres was studied. Both recycling methods showed strong specificities. Injection recycling leads to efficiently homogenised microstructures of the parts but also to drastically reduced lengths of the fibres, up to 10 times lower than with compression moulding. This method globally promotes high failure strengths while compression moulding, by preserving the length of the fibrous reinforcements, guarantees higher stiffness. This work also highlights the impacts of the length and division of the fibre elements on the microstructure of the injected parts; thus, after a series of compression recycling cycles, injected parts exhibit an important skin-core effect larger than after initial injection recycling cycles, whether in terms of orientation or local fibre volume fraction. As a consequence, after a series of recycling by compression, a new injection cycle has for effect to improve the tensile mechanical performances. For example, the strength and modulus of PP-flax composites are increased by 103% and 75%, respectively. These results highlight the technical feasibility and relevance of implementing these two recycling methods, depending on the volumes or equipment available and the final properties to promote, as they enable the production of new high-performance parts.