Currently, there is a need in developing sustainable materials with an emphasis on reusing and recycling, to meet the sustainable development goals outlined by the United Nations for 2030. This work aimed to use recycled materials, such as recycled jeans and recycled rubber to replace the additive used in commercial wood polymer composites (WPCs) (reference material) to make it more sustainable without affecting its technical performance. The feeding of the post-used jeans fabric directly into the extruder was accomplished successfully with an increase in strength, modulus, and impact properties when compared with the reference material. The fracture surfaces showed that the fiber pullout contributed to the enhancement in fracture toughness with the addition of recycled jeans, further the addition of recycled rubber led to the matrix modification keeping the toughness at the same level as the reference material.
Funder:Wallenberg Wood Science Center