Effects on Morphology of Coconut Shell Powder in a Polypropylene Matrix
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2012-05-01Author
Peterson, Benjamin
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Due to increasing environmental awareness and rapid depletion of nonrenewable
resources, sustainable natural materials have been more widely used as fillers in
polymeric composites. Coconut shell powder (CSP) is a renewable and abundant resource
that when used as filler in polypropylene has been shown to enhance the mechanical
properties in neat polypropylene. These mechanical property benefits are not intuitive
based on results from other natural fillers. The purposes of this research are to determine
efficacious means by which the addition of CSP to polypropylene enhances the
mechanical properties. In particular--the effects of the addition of CSP to the morphology
have been studied. The change in the processing window for polypropylene that results
from the addition of CSP to polypropylene has also been explored.