(625f) Evaluating durability after long-term thermal oxidation conditions of biocarbon filled biocomposites from polyphthalamide (PPA) and biobased polyamide (PA410) blend

All industries affected by climate change require significant changes to reduce their green house gases emissions (GHG), while at the same time they are currently experiencing societal pressures to decrease the environmental impact and increase the sustainability of their processes and products. Within the transport industry, a current strategy is to shift away from metal parts and replace them with plastic ones. In any application where the materials experience significant changes in temperature, their long-term conditioning must be evaluated. Polyphthalamide (PPA), a high-performance engineering plastic, is used in many different areas and is mostly derived from oil. In order to increase its sustainability, a composite with biobased polyamide 4,10 and biocarbon was processed (20 wt.% of biocarbon with 80 wt.% of a 25:75 PPA:PA410 polymer matrix). We measured the mechanical, thermal, thermomechanical and morphologic characteristics of the material, alongside its constituent parts and a similarly filled talc-composite, after thermal aging at 155 °C. All the materials were evaluated after every ~250 hours. The biocomposite became stiffer and brittle, with an increase in tensile and flexural modulus, and a decrease in impact energy. Infrared, dynamic mechanical analysis and morphological characterizations suggest that a decrease in chain length, as well as crosslinking between the remaining chains was responsible for the changes in the composite properties. Future work would require evaluating antioxidants that limit the thermal degradation without also affecting the mechanical properties.

Acknowledgements:

This research was financially supported by: (i) The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC),-Collaborative Research and Development Grants (CRD) Project #401637 with the partner industries Prism Farms Limited and Competitive Green Technologies, Lamington, Ontario, Canada; (ii) the On-tario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA)/University of Guelph–Bioeconomy for Industrial Uses Research Program (Project #030332); (iii) the NSERC, Canada Research Chair (CRC) program Project No. 460788 and the Ontario Research Fund, Research Excellence Program; Round-7 (ORF-RE07) from the Ontario Ministry of Research, Innovation, and Science (MRIS) (Project # 052665 and 052662).