Wood-plastic composites are composite materials made of wood fibre or other lignocellulosic materials and thermoplastic(s). Date palms are one of the potential replacements
of insufficient timber sources in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa countries. Low
density polyethylene (LDPE) was blended with date palm wood (DPW) (Phoenix
dactylifera) powder to prepare composites with the concentrations of filler ranging from 10
to 70 wt. %. The Young´s modulus of the composites significantly increased with an increase
in the filler content in the entire concentration range. The maximum value of 1933 MPa for
the composite filled with 70 wt.% of the filler is approximately 13 times higher than that for
the neat LDPE. The incorporation of DPW into the LDPE matrix led to a significant increase
in the polarity of composites and to an increase in their adhesion to polar substrates.This contribution was supported by Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic and Slovak Academy of Sciences, project VEGA, Grant No. 1/0570/17. This research was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contracts No. APVV-16-0177, APVV-17-0583 and APVV-18-0378.Scopu
