Wood-plastic composites are an exciting new application for Lyondell's Integrate product line. The combination of polyolefins and wood products yields many advantages including:
- Weather and Pest Resistance
- Lower Long-Term Maintenance Cost
- No Splintering
- Easy Cleaning
Typical formulations for wood-plastic composites are approximately 30-60 percent wood products (for example wood flour or natural fibers), 40-70 percent polymer (polyethylene, polypropylene, virgin or consumer reclaim) and 2 percent Integrate chemical coupling agent. Integrate products are used in conjunction with polyethylene and polypropylene polymer type components.
While building products make up Integrate's largest market segment, other segments include automotive, infrastructure and industrial/consumer products. Applications include:
|
Automotive
- interior door panels
- rear shelves
- headliners
- spare tire covers
|
Infrastructure
- boardwalks
- piers/docks
- bulkheads/pilings
- piers
- bridges
|
|
Building Products
- decking/railing
- fencing
- window/door profiles
- siding and accessories
- decorative finish trim
- dimensional lumber
|
Industrial/consumer
- park benches and tables
- playground equipment
- trash receptacles
- pallets
- crates
- totes
- signage
- landscape timbers
- railroad ties
|
Many of these applications use post-consumer recycled material. Potential new applications include kitchen cabinets and countertop underlay, furniture components, home and commercial siding, industrial flooring, truck flooring, utility poles, rail box car components and re-usable concrete forms.
Lyondell's Integrate resins are polyolefins that have been chemically modified to provide polar anhydride functionality on the polymer backbone. The polar functionality allows the Integrate products to function as coupling agents for wood/polyolefin composites, bonding the wood fiber to the polyolefin matrix.
Integrate coupling agents contribute considerable improvements in wood-polyolefin composites including:
- significantly improved strength, stiffness and impact
- improved moisture resistance of the wood fiber by intimate contact via chemical coupling
- fiber dispersion
- dimensional stability
- heat deflection temperature
Integrate products are available in either pellet form or E-D-P (Easy-Dispersion-Particles) to allow incorporation in a wide variety of applications and equipment.
General product information