Tensile property of melt mixing co-polypropylene with waste polymer at different composition ratios

In order to implement economical way of managing unwanted substances, waste polymer (WP) can be recycled instead of throwing it away. It can be reused via "sink-float" technique and mixed with another binder like co-polypropylene (co-PP) to enhance the mechani-cal properties of the material. This is because co-PP is a bit softer but has better impact strength, much tougher and more durable than polypropylene (PP). Two materials underwent injection moulding with 170°C temperature to produce dog bone samples for tensile test. The test started with 10% up until 80% of WP content mixed with co-PP. Tensile test speed used for this experiment was 5mm/s. Stress vs. strain graph was obtained from the test and the modulus of elasticity was obtained by using the stress over strain formula. The stress versus strain result for the composite with WP is lower than that of co-PP, proving that WP is more brittle compared to the more elastic co-PP. Morphological analysis of surface structure based on Optical Microscope (OM) indicates that co-PP has smooth surface while WP has a rough surface

Mechanical properties of wood polymer composites (WPCs) after prolonged ultra-violet (UV) irradiation exposure

This research aims to compare the mechanical properties of WPC made from 30 % of rice husk as fibre and 70 % of polypropylene as polymer with and without prolonged UV irradiation exposure. WPC samples are tested with UV irradiation at 5000, 10000, 15000 and 20000 hours with temperature 50 °C and tested with compression test (ASTM D695-15) and tensile test (ASTM D638-02), while physi-cal properties characterization was done by density test (ASTM D792-13) and OM test. The compression and tensile result shows de-crease value of mechanical properties due to the presence of chain breaking activity contributed from the process of photo oxidation throughout the UV exposure. The effect of UV exposure also resulted in decrease of WPC samples density value as the longer the expo-sure, the lower the samples density due to the losses of volatile particle. In conclusion, the weather ability of WPC was observed by pro-longed exposure to UV radiation thus highlights the influence of parameters involved in the degradation rate of WPC as to contribute a good guidelines and resolution for the future growth of polymer composite structure

Thermal degradation study of waste polymer matrix polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride as polymer matrix filled rice husk decking structure

The aim of this study is to find another alternative material to replace the additives of polymeric materials. From previous works, wood-chips are used to act as filler instead of rice husk. Thus, in this case, the woodchips is being exchange with rice husk and mixed with the waste polymer in order to reduce the cost. This study is about the effect of thermal towards the mechanical and physical properties of this WPC. Therefore, heat test and UV Irradiation Exposure test were conducted on this wood polymer composite (WPC). Then, three pa-rameters were being examined which were difference in density, hardness and physical properties after undergoing heat test and UV Irradiation Exposure test. The density and hardness appearances from both test only had slightly reduction and it can be considered as negligible. The physical changes were not too apparent such as crack that would lead to failure even after being heated and exposed to the UV light for a long period. Thus, it proves that rice husk could replace woodchips in order to be used as decking structure