Production of mahogany sawdust reinforced LDPE wood–plastic composites using statistical response surface methodology

Abstract

We produced wood–plastic composite board by using sawmill wastage of mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla) wood and low density polyethylene. We used multi-response optimization to optimize the process parameters of composite board production including mixing ratio, fire retardant (%) and pressing time (min). We investigated the effects of these three process parameters in the mechanical and physical properties of the composite board. Afterwards, Box–Behnken design was performed as response surface methodology with desirability functions to attain the optimal level of mixing ratio, fire retardant and pressing time (min). The maximum modulus of elasticity (MOE) and modulus of rupture (MOR) were achieved at the optimal conditions of wood plastic mixing ratio of 60:40, pressing time of 9 min and zero fire retardant percentage. The optimized MOR and MOE were 13.12 and 1,781.0 N mm−2, respectively.