Fabrication of renewable biocomposites from soy hull and bioplastics .

摘要

This is an investigation for fabrication of biocomposites from soy hull and bioplastics like polylactide (PLA) and polyhydroxy butyrate-co- valerate (PHBV). The study was divided into three parts; the first was the development of a suitable PHBV/PLA blend. The second part involved the fabrication of composites from soy hull and PHBV/PLA blend and its comparison with polypropylene (PP)/soy hull composites. The third part was the effect of compatibilizer on the performance of the composites.;From tensile study, the elongation of an optimized blend was found to be improved by 148 and 250% over the virgin polymers PHBV and PLA respectively. Scanning electron microscope revealed a stronger fiber-matrix interaction in PHBV/PLA composites over PP composites. Furthermore, the compatibilizer improved the impact and flexural strength by 56 and 32% respectively over the un-compatibilized counterpart; more significantly the resulting compatibilized composites showed improved hydrophobicity by more than 22% over un-compatibilized counterpart.