Koay Mei Hyie, Muhammad Hussain Ismail, Nor Suhada Abdullah, Normariah Che Maideen, Salina Budin and Siti Nur Amalina Mohd Halidia
Keywords: plastic, recycle, polypropylene, sustainable, injection molding
Abstract: Due to a robust demand in personnel protective equipment (PPE), food packaging and express delivery packaging, there is no hesitation about the important of plastic being as a protector for virus spread during pandemic COVID-19. Most of the plastic used in the packaging and PPE is polypropylene (PP), which is not biodegradable. If the polypropylene can be reduced or recycled, it will help to overcome the pollution from the plastic waste disposal. Hence, the objective of this study is to upcycling the plastic waste and support sustainable development from plastic waste feasible in high volume production. The products are using natural or recycled materials from abandon plastic waste. In the method, the products injected from an injection molding machine. The materials of the product are natural kenaf/polypropylene, virgin PP/recycled PP, and 14th repetitive recycling of PP. Each product can be produced by injection molding in 10 seconds. The process temperature was ranged from 180°C to 200°C. The findings from the tensile testing according to ASTM D638 revealed that the ultimate tensile strength for Kenaf/polypropylene is the lowest (12.48 MPa), whereas virgin PP/recycled PP and the recycled PP at 14 times produced higher tensile strength of 32.59 MPa. The Elastic Modulus were within 0.841 GPa to 2.70 GPa where the 14th recycled PP experienced the lowest Elastic Modulus. The volume shrinkage of the product was less than 3% for all types of materials. The dimensional and shape stability was guarantee to achieve the good appearance of the product. The outcome of the product innovation will help the plastic industries particularly in sustainable processing of their products waste and reduce the cost of the production.
