Adsorption and desorption performance of two commercial wood plastic composites

In this study, sorption and desorption of two wood plastic composites (WPCs), along with solid southern pine, and white oak were investigated in humidity controlled chambers. Equilibrium moisture content (EMC) obtained for WPC, softwood (southern pine), and hardwood (white oak) sorption after 45 days of experimentation were compared with Hailwood-Horrobin (H-H) sorption model predictions using the same temperature and humidity conditions. The result indicated that the amount of moisture adsorbed increased with increases in relative humidity (from 20% to 99%) at an average temperature of 23 C. The EMC values
obtained for WPC, white oak, and southern pine from the experiment followed the same pattern of that obtained from the H-H model. However, the experimentally predicted EMC values at various relative humidity were different from those predicted by the H-H model. The predicted EMC values of WPC deviated the most from the H-H model as expected since it contained about 50 percent by weight of hydrophobic polyethylene. Deviation observed ranged from 82 to 89 percent at about 30 percent relative humidity, and 25 to 37 percent between 76 and 99 percent relative humidity ranges. Thus, the H-H model is shown to be quite ineffective in predicting the MC values of wood plastic composites.

You must be logged in to download any documents. Please login (login accounts are free) or learn how to Become a Member