Rahman et al.

SpringerPlus 2013, 2:629

http://www.springerplus.com/content/2/1/629

a SpringerOpen Journal

RESEARCH

Open Access

Flat-pressed wood plastic composites from

sawdust and recycled polyethylene terephthalate
(PET): physical and mechanical properties
Khandkar- Siddikur Rahman1, Md Nazrul Islam1*, Md Mushfiqur Rahman1, Md Obaidullah Hannan1,
Rudi Dungani2,3 and HPS Abdul Khalil3

Abstract
This study deals with the fabrication of composite matrix from saw dust (SD) and recycled polyethylene terephthalate
(PET) at different ratio (w/w) by flat-pressed method. The wood plastic composites (WPCs) were made with a thickness
of 6 mm after mixing the saw dust and PET in a rotary type blender followed by flat press process. Physical i.e., density,
moisture content (MC), water absorption (WA) and thickness swelling (TS), and mechanical properties i.e., Modulus of
Elasticity (MOE) and Modulus of Rupture (MOR) were assessed as a function of mixing ratios according to the ASTM
D-1037 standard. WA and TS were measured after 24 hours of immersion in water at 25, 50 and 75C temperature.
It was found that density decreased 18.3% when SD content increased from 40% to 70% into the matix. WA and TS
increased when the PET content decreased in the matrix and the testing water temperature increased. MOE and
MOR were reached to maximum for the fabricated composites (2008.34 and 27.08 N/mm2, respectively) when the
SD content were only 40%. The results indicated that the fabrication of WPCs from sawdust and PET would technically
feasible; however, the use of additives like coupling agents could further enhance the properties of WPCs.
Keywords: Hot pressing; Recycling; Plastic wastes; Modulus of rupture; Modulus of elasticity

Introduction
Wood plastic composites (WPCs) are relatively new
generation of composite materials and also the most
promising sector in the field of both composite and
plastic industries. In 1970s, the modern concept of
WPC was developed in Italy and gradually got popularity in the other part of the world (Pritchard 2004).
Wood in the form of flour/particles/fibers are combined
with the thermoplastic materials under specific heat and
pressure for producing WPCS where additives are
added for improving the quality. Many researchers have
been worked on WPCs by flat-pressed method at various wood-plastic ratio (Chen et al. 2006; Najafi et al.
2007; Lee et al. 2010; Ayrilmis et al. 2011; Ayrilmis
and Jarusombuti 2011; Jarusombuti and Ayrilmis 2011)
which typically ranges between 50 to 80% of SD or fibre
either as filler or reinforcements (Clemons 2002). The
* Correspondence: [email protected]
1
Forestry and Wood Technology Discipline, Khulna University, Khulna 9208,
Bangladesh
Full list of author information is available at the end of the article

higher strength and aspect ratio of natural fibres offers

good reinforcing potential in composite matrix compared
to the artificial fibres (Abdul Khalil et al. 2014; Clemons
2008).
Virgin plastics include high and low density polyethylene (HDPE and LDPE respectively), polypropylene
(PP), polystyrene (PS) and poly vinyl chloride (PVC)
which are commonly used for the production of WPCs
(Najafi et al. 2007). Recycled plastics can also consider
for manufacturing of WPCs depending on their melting
temperature (Stark et al. 2010). Additives can also be
added to improve the quality of the composites by
eliminating the off-putting properties. However, the
utilization of recycled plastic in WPC manufacturing is
still limited, and a major portion of global municipal
solid waste includes post consumer plastic materials like
HDPE, LDPE, PVC, and PET which have the potentiality
for being used in the WPCs (Chaharmahali et al. 2008).
These post consumer plastics also pose a serious threat
to the environment unless they are recycled.

2013 Rahman et al.; licensee Springer. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction
in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Polyethylene terephthalate commonly known as PET

and is formed from terephthalic acid (TPA) and ethylene glycol (EG). It is a long-chain polymer (C10H8O4)n
belongs to the polyesters family. It shows both amorphous
(transparent) and semi-crystalline nature (Ozalp 2011).
PET is intensively used by the packaging industries for
bottles and containers of food and other consumer products. Later, PET has started to use in injection molded and
extruded articles, primarily for reinforcement with glass
fibre (Sinha et al. 2010) which do not degrade in the outdoor environment. Thus, increasing interest has recently
been focused on the recycling of plastic wastes, especially
PET for these various purposes which could prevent the
environmental pollution. Saw dust, a waste from wood
processing industries, also creates environmental hazard
unless reprocessed for different applications like particleboard, pulp. The recycled PET and saw dust can be used
to produce wood plastics by flat-press method which
might a good value added products from waste and would
help to minimize the waste. Flat press method is newly introduced method in the WPC sector and is similar to the
industrial particleboard manufacturing process. Though
extrusion and injection molding are the predominant
technologies to produce WPCs, but flat press process is
technically more advantageous (Jarusombuti and Ayrilmis
2011). This technology possesses some advantages like
higher productivity with relatively lower pressure requirement and as a consequence naturally given wood structure
lefts undestroyed. Thus, the density of WPCs reduces considerably (Ayrilmis and Jarusombuti 2011; Jarusombuti
and Ayrilmis 2011) and increase the moisture resistance
properties compared to the conventional wood based
composites (Jarusombuti and Ayrilmis 2011). However, there is very limited/no work so far on the fabrication and properties of flat-pressed WPCs from
sawdust and recycled PET at various mixing ratios.
Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate
the feasibility of wood plastic composites fabrication
from sawdust and PET. Determining the physical and
mechanical properties of WPCs as a function of mixing ratio was also an objective of this study.

point of recycled PET was 1370 (Kg/m3), 18.4 g/10 min

and 260C, respectively.

Materials and methods

Physical properties

Preparation of raw materials

Density was measured according to the standard for

composites. Moisture content of WPC panels was

Sawdust was obtained from the local saw mills in

Khulna, Bangladesh. Sawdust was screened to remove
the impurities. It was then dried in an oven at 103 2C
for 24 hours for a moisture content of 2%. Clean consumer drinking water bottles were collected locally and
grind in a grinder for getting the recycled PET powder.
The PET powder was sieved by 60 mesh size sieve to remove the oversized particles. The PET powder was then
dried in an oven at 103 2C for 24 hours for a moisture
content of 3% or less. Density, melt flow index and melting

Flat-pressed sawdust-PET composite manufacturing

The ensuing sawdust and PET powder were mixed for 6 minutes in a rotary drum type blender according to the ratio
of Table 1 for producing a homogenous composite. WPC
panels were manufactured by flat press process using a dry
blending method which was similar to an industrial production process. The mixture was placed in an aluminium
caul plate using a forming box to form uniform mat. The
press cycle consisted of three phases (Chen et al. 2006), i.e.,
first phase involved the manual pressing to reduce the mat
height, second phase involved in shifting it to the electrically heated improvised hot press for hot pressing, and finally for cold pressing to facilitate the setting of
thermoplastic resin. The maximum pressing temperature,
pressure, time and cold pressing or pressure holding time
were 190C, 5 N/mm2, 25 minutes and 6 minutes, respectively. Lower temperature (190C) compared to melting
temperature (260C) of the PET was set to avoid the degradation of the wood components. After cold pressing, the
WPCs were removed from the press for further cooling. At
least six replications of each type of WPC panels having
30 25 0.6 cm dimension were fabricated. The WPC
panels were then trimmed and put into a conditioning
room before testing for 48 hours.
Evaluation of composite properties

For both physical and mechanical properties, room

temperature and relative humidity was 23 2C and
65 2%, respectively. According to the ASTM standard D-1037 (ASTM 1999), all specimens were carefully prepared and tested to evaluate the physical and
mechanical properties of each type of WPCs. At least
24 specimens from 6 replications were used for each
type of WPC panel for the evaluation of physical and
mechanical properties. The results were compared
with the wood based panels as there was no WPC
panel standard for comparison as were reported by
Ayrilmis et al. (2011).

Table 1 Formulations of sawdust-PET composites

Formulation

WPC composition based on % weight

Sawdust content (%)

PET content (%)

SD-40

40

60

SD-50

50

50

SD-60

60

40

SD-70

70

30

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measured by oven dry method by using the equation 1:

mc%

m int mod
 100
mod

Where, mc is the moisture content, mint is mass with

moisture (g) and mod is mass after drying.
After soaking the samples in water for 24 hours at 25,
50 and 75C, water absorptions and thickness swelling
were measured according to Najafi et al. (2007). The water
absorption (A) and thickness swelling (G) of the specimens were calculated as percentage. The water absorption
(A) and thickness swelling (G) was calculated according
to the Equation 2 and 3, respectively:
A%

m2 m1
 100
m1

Where m2 is the weight (g) of the specimen after soaking

and m1 is the weight (g) of the specimen before soaking.
G %

A2 A1
 100
A1

Where, A1 is the thickness before soaking, and A2 is

the thickness after soaking.
Mechanical properties

WPC panels were cut into rectangular sections for determining MOE and MOR. The dimension of the specimen was 240 mm 50 mm 6 mm. MOE and MOR
were measured by following the three point bending test
using universal testing machine IMAL-IB600 according
to the ASTM D 103793 standard (ASTM 1999).
Statistical analysis of data

Statistical analysis was done by using SAS system software (version 6.12) at 95% confidence level. The significance of different treatments was determined by least
significant difference (LSD) test.

Results and discussion

Physical properties
Density

The most important indicator of composites performance is density, which basically affects all the properties
of composites. Density of the SD-PET composites decreased with the increase of SD percentage in the thermoplastic matrices. The lowest density (856.73 Kg/m3) was
found in composites made with a mixing ratio of 70:30
(SD:PET), whereas the highest density (1048.55 Kg/m3)
was found when the ratio was 40:60 (SD:PET) (Figure 1).
The lower density of sawdust compared to PET might be
the cause of this density reduction. Statistical analysis illustrated significant differences ( = 0.05) for density among

Figure 1 Density of SD-PET composites at varying ratio.

the SD-PET composites for different mixing ratio (Table 2).

According to ANSI (1999) standard, the density of high
density particleboard is above 800 Kg/m3. Hence, the density of SD-PET composites was above that required standard
for high density particleboard. Chen et al. (2006) reported
that the smaller wood particles like sawdust would make a
thinner mat and the compaction ratio would be higher
resulting high density composite materials. That might be
another reason for this higher density of WPCs found in
this study.
Moisture content

The moisture content of the SD-PET composites increased along with the increase of SD percentage from
40 to 70% (Figure 2). Adding SD into the thermoplastic
matrix increased the moisture content due to the hydrophilic nature of wood. Additionally, the gaps and flaws
at the interfaces, and the micro-cracks in the matrix
formed during the manufacturing process boosted up the
moisture content as reported by Adhikary et al. (2008).
From the variance analysis and LSD (Table 2), it was
observed that there was significant difference ( = 0.05)
in moisture content among composites. According to
the ANSI (1999) standard, the mean moisture content
of the board shall not exceed 10% (based on the oven
dry weight of the board). The moisture content of SDPET composites was substantially lower than that of
the required standard. The same increasing pattern of
MC was also reported by Chen et al. (2006) for the
thermoplastic composites made from HDPE and recycled
wood particles.
Water absorption

Figure 3 illustrates the water absorption of the SD-PET

composites based on various SD content and different
temperatures (25, 50 and 75C) after 24 hours of
immersion in water. WA of the composites increased
with the increase of SD content. The highest WAs were
29.52, 36.10 and 40.33% for 25, 50 and 75C temperature,
respectively with 70% SD content. These results mainly
attributed due to the hydrophilic nature of wood. Wood is

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Table 2 Effect of sawdust content on the properties of SD-PET composites

WPC panel
type

SD-40

SD-50

SD-60

SD-70

Physical properties
Density (Kg/m3)
A

MC (%)
D

1048.55

0.92

(30.53)

(0.21)

Mechanical properties

WA (%)

TS (%)

25C

50C

75C

13.8

21.5

23.3

(1.46)

(3.65)

(2.04)

968.99

1.37

(11.21)

(0.1)

(0.73)

16.7

24.4

25C

MOE (N/mm2)

MOR (N/mm2)

50C

75C

5.7

6.42

7.29D

2008.34A

27.08A

(0.15)

(0.32)

(0.28)

(107.1)

(5.41)

8.68

9.18

1892.91

22.99B

(55.19)

(2.02)

30.2

(0.68)

(0.84)

(0.7)

(0.29)

(0.4)

912.30

1.73

21.3

29.4

33.8

8.1

9.55

10.1

1729.96

14.60C

(59.72)

(0.23)

(1.09)

(2.74)

(8.13)

(0.71)

(1.13)

(0.68)

(35.49)

(4.56)

856.73

2.15

29.5

36.1

40.3

10

10.9

12.4

1433.93

11.68D

(20.5)

(0.19)

(0.59)

(2.19)

(2.34)

(0.4)

(0.31)

(0.73)

(94.11)

(1.07)

Values in parenthesis are standard deviation.

Values within the same line column by different letters are significantly different at = 0.05.

a hydrophilic porous composite which consists of cellulose,

lignin and hemicellulose polymers that are rich in functional groups such as hydroxyls, which readily interact
with water molecules by hydrogen bonding (Clemons
2002) and due to this reason, the WPCs have the potentiality to uptake water under humid condition (Adhikary
et al. 2008). Similar results for increasing pattern of WA
were also reported by Chen et al. (2006) for the WPCs
made from HDPE and recycled wood particles. On the
other hand, higher water resistance of composites with
the increasing PET content can be attributed to the
hydrophobic character of PET, though it is semicrystalline in nature. Figure 3 also illustrated the water
uptake as a function of temperature. Immersion
temperature had also significant influence on the WA of
the composites. In composites with higher SD contents,
WA increased more rapidly when the temperature increased from 25C to 75C. The trend was reverse for
composites having lower SD content. Statistical analysis
showed that there was significant difference ( = 0.05) in
WA after 24 hours at three different temperatures (25, 50
and 75C) among the SD-PET composites (Table 2).
Najafi et al. (2007) reported that besides the percentage
of wood flour/particle, there were several factors including plastic type, virginity of the plastic and surrounding

Figure 2 Moisture content of SD-PET composites at varying ratio.

temperature also influenced the water absorption of

WPCs.
Thickness swelling

The tendency of TS was similar to the WA (Figure 4).

From the statistical analysis (Table 2), it was observed
that the TS were significantly different ( = 0.05) for
WPCs at three different temperatures (25, 50 and 75C).
It also illustrated that the SD-PET composites having
lower percentage of PET were more susceptible to the
thickness swelling than those of panels having higher
PET content. This might be due to the increasing SD
content in the WPC formulation. Ayrilmis et al. (2011)
reported that for thickness swelling and water absorption of WPCs, wood fibers were mainly responsible. The
TS at room temperature (25C) ranged between 5.7 and
10.0% for composites made from 40-70% SD content.
The lowest thickness swelling was found for SD-40 composites which might be because of the higher compatibility between SD and PET when compared to the other
formulations. This increasing pattern of TS was similar
to the results of TS stated by Chen et al. (2006) for the
thermoplastic composites made from HDPE and recycled

Figure 3 Water absorption of SD-PET composites at varying ratio.

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Figure 4 Thickness swelling of SD-PET composites at

varying ratio.

wood particles. Wood has a critical surface energy in the

range of 4060 mJ/m2 (Gupta et al. 2007) which is higher
than that of PET. The large difference in surface energy
between PET and wood might make the PET to be water
repellent or hydrophobic.
Mechanical properties
Modulus of elasticity (MOE)

The MOE of composites decreased along with higher

SD loading from 40 to 70% in the formulation (Figure 5).
This variation might be due to the poor interfacial interaction between the sawdust and PET. The melting
temperature of PET was 260C, however, the pressing
temperature was 190C as a result the thermoplastic
(PET) might not flow well within the composites. Shibata
et al. (2002) reported that the lower MOE of the composites could be mainly attributed to the poor interfacial
interaction between the polymeric matrix and wood particle, not allowing efficient stress transfer between the two
phases of the material though the modulus of the natural
fibers are higher than the polymeric materials. Some other
researches with various thermoplastic materials either
virgin or recycled indicated that the MOE of the WPCs
would increase with the increase of wood content up to

Figure 5 MOE of SD-PET composites at varying ratio.

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60% and deceased after 60% of wood content. This was

because of more than 60% wood particle used to manufacture WPCs, the plastic material could not totally
cover fine wood particles (Chen et al. 2006 and Sanadi
et al. 2001). Moreover, Maloney (1977) reported that
the relatively large surface area of the fine materials
might be another cause of strength loss of the composites. The MOE of WPC panels were statistically different according to the ANOVA and LSD ( = 0.05). MOE
of the SD-PET composites could not fulfill the required
standard of ANSI (1999) for the high density particle
board (2400 N/mm2) but all the composites except the
70:30 (SD:PET) fulfilled the required standard (1725 N/
mm2) for medium density particleboard.

Modulus of rupture (MOR)

Figure 6 illustrates the effects of SD content on the

MOR of the WPCs. The tendency of the MOR was similar to the MOE. It was observed that the MOR of the
composites decreased with the increase of SD content
and ranged between 11.69 and 27.08 N/mm2. It appeared that the binding capacity of the utilized PET
gradually decreased. The mechanical behavior of WPCs
was greatly influenced by the uniformity of lignocellulosic materials dispersed in the polymeric matrix (Chen
et al. 2006 and Raj et al. 1989). The ratio of 40:60 (SD:
PET) had the highest MOR value compared to the other
formulations. Based on the statistical analysis, significant
difference ( = 0.05) was found for the MOR properties
of the WPC panels (Table 2). Moreover, only MOR of
the SD-40 and SD-50 composites fulfilled the required
standard of ANSI (1999) for the high density particleboard (16.5 N/mm2). However, all the formulation of
composites fulfilled the required standard (11 N/mm2)
for medium density particleboard. Ayrilmis and Jarusombuti (2011) reported that MOR would increase up to
4050% for wood fiber content and would start to decrease after 5060% wood fiber content for flat-pressed
PP bonded WPCs.

Figure 6 MOR of SD-PET composites at varying ratio.

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Table 3 Effects of PET content on composite properties

Items
Density (Kg/m3)

Regression equation

Regression coefficient (R2)

y = 6.321x +662.1

0.82

MC (%)

y = 0.40x + 3.367

0.865

WA (%) at 25C

y = 0.518x + 43.67

0.926

WA (%) at 50C

y = 0.488x +49.81

0.824

WA (%) at 75C

y = 0.547x + 56.53

0.693

TS (%) at 25C

y = 0.129x + 13.81

0.821

TS (%) at 50C

y = 0.141x + 15.24

0.854

TS (%) at 75C

y = 0.161x + 16.98

0.908

MOE (N/mm2)

y = 18.86x + 917.4

0.863

y = 0.545x - 5.469

0.751

MOR (N/mm )

Significance level = 0.05; y = Properties of SD-PET composites,

x = PET content.

Effects of PET content on the properties of composites

Effects of PET content on SD-PET composites are presented

in Table 3. Table 3 illustrates that the higher content of PET
in the WPC formulation increases the density and bending
strength of composites. In the mean time, the increasing
PET content in the formulation decreases the moisture content, WA and TS at temperatures of 25, 50 and 75C. Similar results were also reported by Najafi et al. (2007). It
seems that the effect of PET content on moisture content,
WA and TS of WPC is positive. Among all the properties
of SD-PET composites, PET content showed the most relative effect on WA at 25C (R2 = 0.926), while PET content
showed least effect on WA at 75C for WPCs (R2 = 0.693).

Conclusion
This study investigated the technical evaluation of flatpressed wood plastic composites fabricated from different
mixing ratios of sawdust and PET. On the basis of physical
and mechanical properties, it appears that fabrication of
SD-PET composites with dry blending method followed by
flat press process is technically feasible for various structural
purposes. Therefore, from the above presented results and
discussion the following specific conclusions can be drawn:
1. The physical and mechanical property differences
among the WPCs are due to the raw material
characteristics and the mixing ratios used in the
formulations. Therefore, the property of SD-PET
composites depends on raw material and mixing ratio.
2. PET contents decreased moisture content, water
absorption and thickness swelling of composite. It has
also relative effects on density and bending strength.
3. Immersion temperature has significant effect on
the water absorption and thickness swelling of
WPCs. With the increasing immersion
temperature, water absorption and thickness
swelling increases.

Though the flat-pressed WPC fabrication from the sawdust and PET is technically feasible, it would be better to
mix additives like coupling agents to enhance interaction
between sawdust and PET by reducing the melting
temperature of PET, and thus, could ensure the adequate
physical and mechanical properties of composites.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Authors contributions
KS Rahman and MM Rahman carried out the field study. R Dungani drafted
the manuscript. MN Islam, MO Hannan and HPS Abdul Khalil edited the
manuscript. I also declare that all authors read and approved the final
manuscript.
Author details
1
Forestry and Wood Technology Discipline, Khulna University, Khulna 9208,
Bangladesh. 2School of Life Sciences and Technology, Institut Teknologi
Bandung, Gedung Labtex XI, Jalan Ganesha 10, Bandung 40132, West
Java-Indonesia. 3School of Industrial Technology, Universiti Sains Malaysia,
11800 Penang, Malaysia.
Received: 9 October 2013 Accepted: 20 November 2013
Published: 23 November 2013
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doi:10.1186/2193-1801-2-629
Cite this article as: Rahman et al.: Flat-pressed wood plastic composites
from sawdust and recycled polyethylene terephthalate (PET): physical
and mechanical properties. SpringerPlus 2013 2:629.

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