Material selection of sustainable composites by recycling of waste plastics and agro-industrial waste for structural applications: A fuzzy group decision-making approach

Abstract

Recycling of waste plastics (WP) for the development of sustainable composite materials is one of the effective methods to deal with the problems of the generated plastics wastes. The research proposes an integrated Analytical Hierarchy Process-Techniques for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (AHP-TOPSIS) approach based on triangular fuzzy weighted Bonferroni mean operator (TFWBMO) for the selection of an appropriate composition for development of floor tiles by recycling WP and agro-industrial wastes. The decision hierarchy has been formed by collecting the experts' opinion from five different academicians and personalities engaged in the domain of sustainable composites. The present work suggests that the amalgamation of 90 wt % of low-density polyethylene with 10 wt % of fillers is a suitable composition for structural applications. The comparative analyses of the results with well-known techniques and sensitivity analyses have confirmed the reliability of the proposed model. Moreover, Spearman's rank correlation coefficient (SRCC) has verified the statistical consistency of the proposed model. The proposed mathematical model is efficient in handling the vagueness in decision-making and hence can be successfully implemented to overcome the issues of material selection in large scale production of sustainable structural materials. The research has explored the potential of WP in the replacements of the conventional structural materials by a sustainable composites possessing expedient features.