Author details

of r-PP biocomposites. Also, the impact tests showed that the addition of MAPP increases the capacity of r-PP biocomposites to absorb energy. Thermal studies show that CHF and CCF fibers addition did not disturb the melting process and improves the thermal stability of the PP matrix. Despite that for this case scenario, the values of the carbon footprint for both biocomposites is considerably high compared to the recycled polypropylene, it is important to keep in mind that the evaluation was made on a cradle to gate analysis, this means that the benefits of the mechanical and thermal enhancements are not taken into account on this evaluation among the use and operational phases. Depending on the application, the use of these biocomposites has the potential to reduce the carbon footprint over the lifespan of a product made with it, saving emissions derived from usage and disposal. Regarding the performance of both biocomposites, it can be noted that rPP-CHF has a better operation regarding environmental issues due to the saved emissions from raw material transportation. This means that in order to elaborate more sustainable biocomposites, raw material should be delivered on a local extent. Also in order to lower the environmental impacts of the material, the fiber fraction is an important issue due to the replacement of polymer fraction over the composite and

Material Carbon footprint (kg CO2 eq/kg)

Neat Polypropylene 40.14 rPP-CHF 10.44 rPP-CCF 25.55 Recycled polypropylene 0.44

Carbon emissions comparison for neat PP, r-PP, and r-PP biocomposites.

Figure 10.

Thermosoftening Plastics

Table 14.

104

Carbon footprint of the compared materials.

thus saving emissions from polymer primary elaboration process.

Miguel Ángel Hidalgo-Salazar<sup>1</sup> \*, Juan Pablo Correa-Aguirre<sup>1</sup> , Juan Manuel Montalvo-Navarrete<sup>1</sup> , Diego Fernando Lopez-Rodriguez<sup>2</sup> and Andrés Felipe Rojas-González<sup>2</sup>

1 Research Group for Manufacturing Technologies GITEM, Universidad Autónoma de Occidente, Cali, Colombia

2 Investigation Group on Waste Recovery GIAR, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Manizales, Colombia

\*Address all correspondence to: mahidalgo@uao.edu.co

© 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
