Mechanical and optimization studies of polypropylene hybrid biocomposites

Abstract

Towards developing a polymeric matrix characterized by high strength to cost ratio, polypropylene (PP) was hybridized with low-cost particulate snail shell (PSS) and kenaf fiber (KF) via compression moulding at 180 °C and 0.2 MPa. The developed composites were grouped into three and labeled as mix 2, 4, and 10. Each group entailed the blend of 5, 10, 20, and 30 wt% KF with 2, 4, 10 wt% PSS respectively. From the results, it is observed that the hardness value was enhanced by the blend of 5 to 30 wt% KF and 2, 4, and 10 wt% PSS. However, 2 wt% PSS mix with 5 to 30 wt% KF resulted in progressive improvement in impact, compressive, flexural, and tensile strengths values. The 4 wt% PSS yielded consecutive increase in impact, compressive and flexural strength when combined with 5 and 10 wt% KF. However, it was observed that subsequent addition of 20 and 30 wt% KF led to a marginal reduction in the strength values. The tensile strength attained optimum value when 4 wt% PSS was commixed with 30 wt% KF. Conversely, the combinations of 10 wt% PSS with 5, 10, 20, and 30 wt% KF had no significant improvement to the mechanical properties of PSS/KF-bio-PP composite (except for hardness) siring strength decrease. Taguchi optimization revealed that the collage of 4 wt% PSS and 10 wt% KF presented optimum mix for hybrid bio-PP composite.

Application of Mixing Rules for Adjusting the Flowability of Virgin and Post-Consumer Polypropylene as an Approach for Design from Recycling

“…PP is influenced by thermo-oxidative and UV light-initiated degradation in warm and bright environments leading to chain scission and thus to molar mass reduction and MFR increase [16]. This effect in combination with the influence of material changes on thermal and mechanical properties is already discussed in the literature by parametrization of different formulations [17][18][19][20][21][22][23]. Nevertheless, this paper discusses MFR value changes as they are of most importance for machine operators.…”

Multi-Response Optimization and Prediction of Tribological behaviours of Filled Polytetrafluoroethylene Composites Using Taguchi-Deng and Evolutionary Harris Hawk’s Optimization Methodologies

“…The work established that optimum parameters were content of TiO 2 at 5%, barrel temperature of 225 0 C, residence time of 30 minutes and holding time of 20 s. Adediran et al optimized mechanical properties of hybrid propylene reinforced bio composites using Taguchi model. It was found that collage of 4% PSS and 1o% kenaf fibre produced the optimum combination for hybrid bio composites 22 . Besides this, Taguchi method hybridized with grey relational grade has as well been employed for multi-response optimization of wire discharge electrical discharge machining 23 , turning process 24 and milling parameter 25 .…”

Optimization and prediction of tribological behaviour of filled polytetrafluoroethylene composites using Taguchi Deng and hybrid support vector regression models

“…The work established that optimum parameters were content of TiO 2 at 5%, barrel temperature of 225 °C, residence time of 30 min and holding time of 20 s. Adediran et al optimized mechanical properties of hybrid propylene reinforced bio composites using Taguchi model. It was found that collage of 4% PSS and 10% kenaf fibre produced the optimum combination for hybrid bio composites 22 . Besides this, Taguchi method hybridized with grey relational grade has as well been employed for multi-response optimization of wire discharge electrical discharge machining 23 , turning process 24 and milling parameter 25 .…”