A Study on the Mechanical Properties of Bio Composites from Renewable Agro-Waste/Poly(lactic acid)

The focus in the present work is to study, a new type of agro waste corn husk flour bio-filler as reinforcement for thermoplastic polymers (Poly lactic acid). These materials have been created by extrusion and test specimens were prepared by injection molding. The effect of filler content (10, 20, 30, 40 wt%) and mesh sizes (50 similar to 100, 100, 300) on the mechanical properties was studied. The tensile strength, flexural strength and impact strength showed a decreasing trend with increase in the filler loading and increasing trend with the mesh size. In contrast, enhanced flexural modulus was observed with increasing filler loading and size. It can be concluded, from this study that the used agro-waste material is an attractive reinforcement in manufacturing green composites from the standpoint of their mechanical properties. Water uptake increases with increasing fiber content.