A comparison study on mechanical properties of virgin and recycled polylactic acid (PLA)

摘要

Huge usage of Polylactic Acid (PLA) has contributed to the high wastes which mainly come from the worn parts. Recycling of the wastes is seen to be a permissible solution to reduce the quantity of wastes in the landfills. This work aims to compare the mechanical properties of virgin and recycled PLA. The recycled material is collected from the waste produces from the injection molding process. The mechanical testing samples for both virgin and recycled materials are prepared using an injection molding process. The results show that the mechanical properties of recycled PLA lower than the virgin PLA. The tensile strength of recycled PLA decreases by 11% as compared to virgin PLA. On the other hand, TRS is also observed drop by 5% for recycled PLA compared to virgin PLA. A similar trend is found in the impact strength and hardness of properties where its impact strength drops by 50% of recycled PLA. For hardness property, it is noted that the hardness decreases by 4% of the recycled PLA. The decreasing value of the mechanical properties is due to thermal degradation of the PLA molecular chain during the injection molding process which has consequently affected the mechanical properties of the recycled PLA.