Regeneration of Spent Bleaching Earth for PLA Nanocomposite Filler

Abstract

This paper concerns on regeneration of spent bleaching earth (SBE) as a filler in biodegradable nanocomposite. The nanocomposite were produced from two different production methods, solvent casting and extrusion. SBE can be used as filler after being regenerated by removing oil and impurities. A regeneration method for SBE was conducted using chemical treatment. Regeneration process was proved to be succesful as shown in FTIR with the absence of peak at 2850 cm—1 – 2930 cm−1 and 1730 cm−1 indicating the disappearance of free fatty acids and ester bonds from regenerated bleaching earth (RBE). The RBE was then applied as filler for PLA-Nanocomposite, biodegradable plastic, a suitable substitute for conventional plastic. The production of nanocomposite used two different surfactants, namely octadecyl amine (ODA) and trimethyl stearyl ammonium chloride (TSC) at two different concentration (20 mmol and 40 mmol). The mechanical property of PLA-Bentonite nanocomposite was then analyzed for tensile strength and permeability. The highest tensile strength and lowest gas permeability was obtained by nanocomposite that used 40 mmol TSC as surfactant, with 12.48 MPa and 0.017 g/day, respectively. Moreover, addition of regenerated bleaching earth to PLA-Nanocomposite during production using extrusion and solvent casting had slight different effect. XRD pattern of all extruded PLA-nanocomposite samples indicated the formation of exfoliated structure, as shown in XRD pattern with very low intensity peak around 2 nm at 2? = 5, while only a few of samples of PLA-nanocomposite created by solvent casting indicating the same structure.