Abstract
The effects of coconut husk and mango seed shell filler blend which are considered as agricultural wastes on the mechanical properties of Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) composites were studied. These fillers which are of plant origin, organic, cheap to acquire, available, and biodegradeable were incorporated into LDPE polymer resin for the fabrication of bio-degradeable LDPE polymer composites. Varying percentages of the fillers, 0%, 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% were added to the LDPE polymer resins to produce biodegradeable LDPE polymer composites through injection moulding machine. The mechanical properties such as tensile strength, flexural strength, compression strength and hardness test were tested for. The surface morphology of the composites was also tested for via scanning electron microscope. The results showed that the fillers had positive impacts on the mechanical properties of the polymer composites by improvement in the flexural strength and hardness. The use of such cheap, available and biodegradeable raw materials can decrease the high cost of production of LDPE products, and aid the production of more eco friendly polymer composites.
Highlights
The extensive exploit of polymeric materials such as plastics in various application like packaging, building materials, medicine, sports, automobile, domestic etc. is increasing rapidly nowadays as a result of effective modification of properties of plastics using additives
It can be deduced that the reinforced composite of 15% filler content has the highest flexural strength when compared to the unfilled 0% filler composite having the lowest flexural strength, this increase might be due to even dispersion of filler in the polymer matrix and the cellulosic nature of the filler [10, 11]
This is in agreement with this present study and shows that coconut husk and mango seed shell powdered filler blend can be used as filler in improving the flexural properties of Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) composites
Summary
The extensive exploit of polymeric materials such as plastics in various application like packaging, building materials, medicine, sports, automobile, domestic etc. is increasing rapidly nowadays as a result of effective modification of properties of plastics using additives. Is increasing rapidly nowadays as a result of effective modification of properties of plastics using additives. Among all the additives being used in the modification of plastic properties, extruding and reinforcing fillers (either in fibrous or particular form) have played significant role. The sources of fillers for polymeric materials have been shifted to agricultural materials [2] or natural product (as an alternative to expensive and toxic inorganic filters) due to their availability, low cost, ecofriendly and biodegradability. Polymer composites are the physical combination of two or more materials of some or different categories of materials (out of them one must be polymer) to form a multi-plastic system with improved properties from the individual components without losing their own identity [3]. A particulate composite consists of a matrix reinforced with a dispersed phase in form of particles, like groundnut shell, mango seed shells, coconut husk etc. One advantage of a composite is that two or more materials could be combined to take advantage of the good
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