Project: Development of Durable, Fully Bio-Based Thermoplastic Composites from Bioplastics and Pulp Fibres for Injection Moulding Applications overview
The motivation for the project was the promising wood-polymer concept DuraPulp® from cellulose pulp and PLA. It is fully renewable, shows good mechanical properties, a perceived naturalness, nice tactile properties, and can be dyed with clear colours. It won a lot of design awards and it became obvious the market should increase with a wider variety of plastics processing technologies available. Due to this the transnational project team from SE, FI and Germany developed a processing technology that allows making injection moulded parts out of DuraPulp® but keeping the material identity. Various formulations using different fibre types, PLA grades, and additives were investigated. The sample production was increased to industrial scale and the processing equipment for compounding and injection moulding was adapted. The injection mouldable MouldPulp material developed in the project is nearly 100% bio-based from wood and agriculture resources. The processing behaviour as well as the product properties fulfil the industrial and consumer requirements. Thin-walled injection moulded parts are producible on conventional plastics machinery (including hot runner systems) in clear colours and with acceptable cycle times. This technical development was continuously accompanied by the evaluation of the innovation potentials through a market survey, an analysis of the up-scaled processing technology and the costs, and a life cycle assessment (LCA). The measuring of the emotional performance of the MouldPulp material on test persons showed that the MouldPulp samples received on average significantly higher ratings than PP samples on quality and pleasantness.
| Acronym | MouldPulp |
| Duration | 01/11/2011 - 31/12/2013 |
| Website | visit project website |
| Network | WoodWisdom-Net 2 |
| Call | Sustainable, competitive processing and end-use concepts for forest-based industries |
Project partner
| Number | Name | Role | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| Elastopoli Oy | Finland | ||
| FKuR Kunststoff GmbH | Germany | ||
| Fraunhofer Society for the Advancement of Applied Research - Fraunhofer-Institute for Environmental, Safety, and Energy Technology | Coordinator | Germany | |
| Hammarplast Consumer AB | Sweden | ||
| Innventia AB | Sweden | ||
| Nova-Institut GmbH | Germany | ||
| Södra Skogsägarna Ekonomisk Förening - Södra Innovation | Sweden |