Enhanced interfacial adhesion of bioflour-filled poly(propylene) biocomposites by electron-beam irradiation

The effect of electron-beam (EB) irradiation on interfacial adhesion in bioflour (rice-husk flour, RHF)-filled poly(propylene) (PP) biocomposites in which either only the Riff had been EB irradiated or the whole biocomposite had been EB irradiated was examined at different EB-irradiation doses. The tensile strengths of PP-RHF biocomposites with EB-irradiated RHF and EB-irradiated PP and PP-RHF biocomposites were slightly higher than those of the nonirradiated samples. The improved interfacial adhesion of PP-RHF biocomposites with EB radiated RHF and the EB-irradiated PP-RHF biocomposites compared with the nonirradiated samples was confirmed by the morphological characteristics. In addition, the thermal stability of EB-treated biocomposites was slightly higher than those of nonirradiated samples at the irradiation doses of 2 and 5 Mrad. However, at the high irradiation dose (30 Mrad). the tensile strengths of the biocomposites were slightly decreased by main-chain scission (degradation) of PP and RHF. Attenuated total reflectance FT-IR and X-ray-photoelectron- spectroscopy findings confirmed this result by showing that that EB irradiation changed the functional groups of RHF, PP, and the biocomposites and improved the surface characteristics of the biocomposites. The thermal characteristics of the EB-irradiated PP and biocomposites were investigated using differential scanning calorimetry. From the results, we concluded that use of low-dose EB radiation increases the interfacial adhesion between matrix polymer and biofiller.