Publications by authors named "Andrey Acosta"

Developing a new type of polyurethane is essential because conventional options often exhibit shortcomings in terms of environmental sustainability, cost-effectiveness, and performance in specialized applications. A novel polyurethane adhesive derived from a simple mixture of castor oil (CO) and crude glycerin (CG) holds promise as it reduces reliance on fossil fuels and harnesses renewable resources, making it environmentally friendly. Simple CO/CG mixtures, adjusted at three different weight fractions, were used as bio-based polyester polyols to produce polyurethane adhesive for wood bonding.

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Prepregs are commonly fabricated with non-renewable petroleum-based materials. To reduce the impact of the manufacturing of these materials and to produce more sustainable prepregs, this research aims to manufacture poly(furfuryl alcohol)/wood veneer prepregs and their posterior molding in laminate composites. For this purpose, the vacuum infusion process was used to impregnate the wood veneers, and compression molding was applied to manufacture three- and four-layer laminate composites.

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Article Synopsis
  • Pine seed shells and yerba mate, waste byproducts from food and beverage industries, were used to create rigid polyurethane foams (RPUFs) at varying filler percentages of 5, 10, and 15 wt%.
  • Yerba mate demonstrated good compatibility with the polyurethane, enhancing mechanical and thermal properties due to its chemical structure, while pine seed shells did not bond well, leading to a significant decline in performance.
  • The study found that yerba mate reinforced foams exhibited improved thermal properties and a decrease in glass transition temperature, whereas pine seed shell reinforced foams showed stability in thermal performance but poor mechanical strength.
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The use of lignocellulosic fillers in rigid polyurethane foams (RPUFs) has been receiving great attention due to their good mechanical and insulation properties and the high sustainable appeal of the obtained cellular polymers, although high water uptakes are found in most of these systems. To mitigate this detrimental effect, RPUFs filled with wood flour (2.5% wt) were fabricated with the addition of furfuryl alcohol (FA) to create a polymer grafted with the wood filler.

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This work deals with the durability of a wood impregnated with alumina (AlO) particles. The samples were impregnated at three different AlO weight fractions (c.a.

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Banana and bergamot peels are underutilized byproducts of the essential oil and juice-processing industry. This study was designed for the development of rigid polyurethane foam (RPUF) composites using polysaccharide-rich fruit peels as fillers. These fillers were characterized for chemical properties using wet analyses.

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