Determination of tensile, flexural properties and microstructural characterization of calcium carbonate filler reinforced polypropylene matrix composites

Abstract

Calcium carbonate is one of the commonly used inorganic filler reinforcements in polypropylene matrix. In this research work, granules of chicken egg shell containing natural organic calcium carbonate resource has been introduced to reinforce in the polypropylene base material. The aim of this experimental study is to determine the tensile, flexural properties and to characterize the microstructures of granular chicken shell containing natural calcium carbonate reinforced in polypropylene. Chicken egg shells are crushed and sieved and granules of size 160μm are selected for reinforcement in the polypropylene matrix. The granules are then mixed with polypropylene base material with silane as a coupling agent proportionally in order to obtain four different proportions 10%, 20%, 30% and 40% on weight fraction basis with the aid of an extrusion machine. Experimental result have shown improvements in Tensile Modulus and Flexural Modulus of this newly processed natural organic calcium carbonate filler reinforced polypropylene composites, although it has not improved the tensile strength, flexural Strength and strain to fracture. The weight fraction ratio of the filler reinforced in the matrix which gave the highest tensile and flexural modulus is 20% and 10%, respectively.