Manufacturing of Composite Panels from Date Palm Leaflet and Expanded Polystyrene Wastes Using Hot Compression Moulding Process
Ahlem Malti, Tahar Masri, M. M. Yagoub, I.M. Mahbubul, Aida Ghazali, Adel Benchabane
Abstract
This study focuses on the reduction of the environmental impact of plastic waste and the valorisation of vegetal wastes produced annually from date palms.This paper presents an experimental study on the manufacturing of composite panels based on date palm leaflets, DPL, and expanded polystyrene wastes were carried out.Hot compression process was proposed with the aim of improving the composite manufacturing techniques previously released by the team using a cold compression process.Three composites were studied with the weight fraction (wt.%) of 70, 75 and 80 of the DPL as a reinforcement.The weight fraction of expanded polystyrene is respectively 30, 25 and 20 wt.%.Physical and mechanical characterizations of biocomposites were performed with the reinforcement size between 0.315 mm and 0.5 mm.The result shows that the composite panels have a low density between 414 and 511 kg/m 3 .The composite panels showed an improved maximum stress and flexural modulus that can reach 6.18 MPa and 13.5 MPa respectively.These values are comparable to the literature values such as Medium Density Fibreboard (MDF) (13.5-25MPa) and the Durian Peel and Coconut Coir (DPCC) particleboards (0.8-22.4 MPa), (0.7-43 MPa).However, the water absorption result ranging from 77 to 95 % shows that the studied composite panels are sensitive to moisture and exhibit high moisture uptake percentage thus limits their possibility of use in moist condition.