Development ofBiocomposite: The Influence of Natural Fillers

• Main Author: Selamat, Noor Atilia
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS 2010
• Subjects: TJ Mechanical engineering and machinery
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/8079/1/2010%20-%20Development%20of%20biocompositen%20-%20The%20influence%20of%20natural%20fillers.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/8079/

A study was carried out to investigate the influence of different types of natural fillers and their loadings on the mechanical properties of high density polyethylene (HDPE) based composites. Silane treated oil palm empty fruit bunch (EFB) and sawdust, varied from 10- 30 %wt were used as the filler in the composites. The incorporation of fillers was found to reduce the tensile strength of EFB and sawdustfilled HDPE by 25% and 24% respectively whereby the flexural strength increased up to 11% for EFB composite and 14% for sawdust composite. Insignificant change was observed on the tensile strength of both EFB and sawdust composites as the filler loading was varied. However, the flexural strength of EFB composite increased up to 10% while sawdust composite impart no significant improvement on flexural strength as the effect of filler loading was concerned. The micrographs from scanning electron microscope (SEM) revealed the interaction between the fillers and the HDPE matrix through the presence of fibre pull out, small gap and matrix tearing that weakened the composite materials.