An investigation of date palm seed as effective filler material of glass–epoxy composites using optimization techniques

Abstract

Glass/epoxy (G-E) products are widely used in numerous industries nowadays. This is due to favorable characteristics of these products including low cost, ease of manufacturing, good mechanical properties, and lightweight. The mechanical properties of G-E composites can be enhanced through mixing with natural reinforcement materials. In this work, we investigate the use of date seeds (DSs) as a reinforcement material for G-E composites. A DS filler has been added to G-E hybrid composites as a powder by applying a semiautomatic technique. Glass fibers reinforced with angle-ply ([±45]4) were considered as commonly used G-E composites. G-E reinforced DS composites were analyzed using various mechanical characteristics such as mica-hardness, tensile strength, and impact strength. Effects of the DS filler on the wear volume loss (VL) were investigated at different parameter settings. This loss was analyzed using the traditional Taguchi method and the nontraditional flower pollination algorithm to obtain optimal parameters. Surface inspection using a scanning electron microscope and Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) was conducted. The results revealed that the addition of a 10% DS reinforcement to G-E composites enhanced the wear resistance and increased toughness and hardness. Finally, G-E-DS composite optimization was carried out by minimizing the wear VL. This resulted in an optimum DS reinforcement of 10% at a normal load of 10 N, an abrasive size of 1200 mesh, and an abrading distance of 420 m. Deviations from this reinforcement ratio degrade the mechanical properties of the G-E-DS composite. Moreover, the significant factors are the abrasive size, reinforcement material wt%, normal load, and abrading distance. The contributions of these factors are 30.6%, 15.5%, 11.8%, and 10%, respectively. FTIR results indicate that a chemical interaction has occurred between G-E and the organic DS. These experimental results are in good agreement with the theoretical ones.

Eco-friendly date-seed nanofillers for polyethylene terephthalate composite reinforcement

“…The weight percentages for the compound elements are shown in table 2. These weights are generally consistent with reported chemical analysis results for date seeds [24].…”

“…Distinct parallel grooves and ridges running in the sliding direction are shown in the micrographs of figures 7(b), (c). [24,33,45].…”

“…It can be noted in figure 6(c) that the bands at wave numbers of 3470 and 2942 cm −1 are attributed to CH 2 splitting. Moreover, the FTIR analysis demonstrates that the PET-DSN composite with a DSN weight of 0.75 wt% has a higher spectrum [24,33].…”

“…The resulting p-value shows that the DSN reinforcement has significantly changed the observed nanocomposite characteristics compared to the unreinforced PET composite. Indeed, the test results show significant variance due the filler wt% factor (p-value=0.00) but lesser variance due to the normal load factor (p-value=0.093) [24,34]. The statistical analysis was performed using MINITAB 18.…”

“…On the one hand, the most common inorganic fillers are carbon nanofibers (CNFs), carbon nanotubes (CNTs), and exfoliated graphite (EG) [17,18]. On the other hand, several organic fillers are extracted from waste materials such as the tamarind kernel powder [19], rice husk [20], coffee husk [21], Delonix regia (Dr) [22], wood flour [23] and date-seed (DS) particles [24]. These organic fillers are frequently used to enhance the mechanical properties of composites [25,26].…”