Polyethylene and Caribea’s Leaves Composite as A Wood Replacing Material

Abstract

The primary objective of this research is to assist the Quartermaster Departmentof the Royal Thai Air Force in finding an alternative method to produce a green composite material, which can be used for replacing the conventional wood materials. The green composite material or the so-called wood-plastic composite was successfullyfabricated by using the hot press technique at 140 °C and 250 kg/cm2 for 4 min. Specifically, the grounded dry Caribain leaves (CL) (Pinuscaribaea Motrlet) as a natural fiber reinforcement were homogenously mixed into a low density polyethylene (LDPE) matrix, using maleic anhydride grafted polyethylene as a coupling agent (MAH-PE). The dry Caribain leaves were collected from a tropical rainforest in the northern part of Thailand, and the LDPE plastics were obtained from common household plastic waste, especially water bottles. Based upon the experimental results from measuring their mechanical properties such as MOR, MOE and tensile strength, the mixture containing the weight ratio of LDPE, MAH-PE and CL 75:5:20 is significantly better than the mixture containing the weight ratio of LDPE, MAH-PE and CL 65:5:30 due to the MOR, MOE and tensile strength are 20.52 MPa, 785.05 MPa and 152.33 kg., respectively.