Properties of Pulp Fibers’ Biocomposites

In the last decade, the technological craze has led to a decline in demand for newsprint and printing paper, the flagship products of the paper industry. This trend has generated a surplus of pulp fibers that must be valorized for new high-value-added products. The main objective of this work was to evaluate the potential of pulp fibers to produce high-fiber content biocomposites by an injection molding process. Kraft, thermomechanical, and chemi-thermomechanical pulp fibers, polypropylene (PP), and polylactic acid (PLA) served for composites manufacturing. PLA WPCs showed better mechanical properties compared to PP WPCs. Kraft fibers had the best mechanical properties and dimensional stability, regardless of the nature of the matrix and the fiber content. At 60% and 70%, kraft fibers led to the best flexural properties for PP and PLA WPCs, respectively. TPLA composites were more sensitive to water absorption than PP-based composites.