Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Gérard Mougin
AFT Plasturgie - Agro Fibres Technologies Plasturgie,
Fontaine les Dijon, France
14.1 Introduction
without which the minimum quality for the
product cannot be attained.
In view of these difficulties, hemp produc-
ers created, in 2001, the company
AFT
Plasturgie
, with the specific objective of creat-
ing and developing a procedure that would
allow an economically viable production of a
modified polymer containing natural fibres.
This polymer also needed to demonstrate
improved technical properties.
For over a decade, a number of laboratories
and technical centres across the world have
been undertaking research into the incorpora-
tion of natural materials into plastics. This work
is motivated largely by the need to protect the
environment and reduce our dependency on
non-renewable resources.
The encouraging results from these pro-
grammes have led to a number of attempts to
seek industrial applications; these have often
met with failure, for a range of reasons.
Developments seeking to enhance the
value of an agricultural by-product (e.g. ground
straw or wheat, maize cobs and other plant
crop by-products) have found that the process-
ing costs are not covered by the value of the
product, thus assuring their failure.
The production of compounds containing
plant cellulose materials, using traditional pro-
duction methods, necessitate the use of costly
products in order to make the cellulose com-
patible with the polymers. This is not economi-
cally viable.
The creation of composite materials
containing natural fibres can only be achieved
industrially by creating a complete, struc-
tured production sequence from the farmer
to the plastics manufacturer. The variability
of the raw materials necessitates precise
control of their production and processing,
14.2 Plasturgy
14.2.1 Polymers
The worldwide market for plastics is larger
than that for steel, with over 80 million tonnes
(Mt) per annum. Its potential for growth is
increasing. Among the countries consuming
plastics, France lies fifth behind the USA,
Japan, Germany and Italy. While similar
amounts are consumed in Europe and the
USA, there are variations in the amounts of
different plastics used.
Among the commonly used polymers,
polyethylene (PE) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC)
are more popular in the USA than in Europe.
This is due to higher individual consumption in
the USA, where the plastics are much used in
packaging (Fig. 14.1).
