Abstract
It is extremely important to save costs and time while enhancing accuracy in experimentation. However, no study has utilized response surface methodology (RSM) to obtain the effects of independent parameters on properties of PLA/clay/rice husk composites. This study focused on optimization of tensile strength of fiber-reinforced polylactic acid (PLA) composites. RSM using Box-Behnken design (BBD) was used to determine optimum blending parameters of the developed composites. Fiber-reinforced PLA composites were prepared using compression molding. Rice husk fiber and clay filler were used to enhance tensile properties of PLA. Five factors, namely, clay filler loading (1 − 5 wt.%), rice husk fiber loading (10 − 30 wt.%), alkali concentration (0 − 4 wt.%), rice husk variety (K85, K98), and alkali type (NaOH, Mg(OH)2) were varied with 68 individual experiments. Tensile tests were carried out according to ASTM D638 standards. ANOVA results revealed that the quadratic models best fit the tensile strength response, with filler loading and fiber loading factors as the most significant model terms. Interaction effects were more predominant than linear and quadratic effects. The developed models used to determine maximum tensile strengths of PLA/clay/rice husk composites were in close agreement with experimental findings (R2 values of 0.9635, 0.9624, 0.9789, and 0.9731 for NaOH-modified K85 rice husks, Mg(OH)2-modified K85 rice husks, NaOH-modified K98 rice husks, and Mg(OH)2-modified K98 rice husks respectively). Individual optimal conditions were used to predict maximum tensile strengths in each set of developed composites. The predicted tensile strengths were 32.09 MPa, 33.69 MPa, 32.47 MPa, and 32.75 MPa for PLA/clay composites loaded with NaOH-modified K85 rice husks, Mg(OH)2-modified K85 rice husks, NaOH-modified K98 rice husks, and Mg(OH)2-modified K98 rice husks, respectively, which were very close to the obtained experimental values of 31.73 MPa, 33.06 MPa, 32.02 MPa, and 31.86 MPa respectively.
Highlights
Engineering and science efforts towards sustainable reinforcement of polymer matrices with natural fibers are increasing fast in recent times [1]
The influence of the three numeric factors on the tensile strength of polylactic acid (PLA)/clay composites loaded with NaOH-modified K85 rice husks, Mg(OH)2-modified K85 rice husks, NaOH-modified K98 rice husks, and Mg(OH)2-modified K98 rice husks can be modeled using a second-order polynomial shown in Eq (2)
The total percentage contributions (TPC) for interaction effects are 83.42%, 77.27%, 71.96%, and 81.94% for PLA/clay composites loaded with NaOH-modified K85 rice husks, Mg(OH)2-modified K85 rice husks, NaOH-modified K98 rice husks, and
Summary
Engineering and science efforts towards sustainable reinforcement of polymer matrices with natural fibers are increasing fast in recent times [1]. Another study reported tensile strength of 0.05–0.5 MPa in PLA composites and that addition of 4 wt.% and 6 wt.% raw rice husk fiber increased the tensile strength by 95% and 43% respectively [16]. As such, these composites can be used as to develop components in Uganda’s automotive industry [17, 18]. Kovacevic et al [19] studied the effect of fiber loading on tensile properties of fiber-reinforced PLA composites and reported increasing tensile strength of neat PLA by 136.80% at 30 wt.% fiber loading. They reported that 10 wt.% fiber loading reduced tensile strength of neat PLA but with subsequent increase in fiber loading to a 30 wt.% optimum, a marginal improvement was noted
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