Effects on Morphology of Coconut Shell Powder in a Polypropylene Matrix

Abstract

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.