Research for the production of composite materials from waste polyethylene (PE) plastic and rice husks for trial production of piles in river erosion control projects in Vinh Long province

Abstract

This paper presents the survey results of influencing factors (weight fractions of rice husk, MAPE, rice husk grain size) on the physico-mechanical strength, hardness and water absorption  of PE/rice husk composite materials. The survey results show that the increase in rice husk content from 80 to 120 parts by weight increases the physico-mechanical strength (tensile, bends, compresses) of the material but not much and when it continues to increase to 140 parts by weight, these indexes fell again; The hardness of the composite material reaches a stable level when the rice husk weight increases above 130; Water absorption increased with increasing rice husk content. The change in MAPE mass fraction from 0.5 to 2.0 increases the physico-mechanical strength of the material but not much and when it continues to increase to 3.5. volume, these indexes are almost unchanged; The hardness of the composite material reaches a stable level when the MAPE mass fraction increases above 3.5; Water absorption decreases with increasing MAPE mass fraction from 0.5 to 2.0 and increases to 3.5. The change in rice husk grain size from 0.1 to 1.0 mm increased the physico-mechanical strength of the material but not much and when continued to increase to over 2 mm, these indexes decreased again, the index reached the highest when the size of rice husks reached from 0.5-1.0 mm; The hardness of composite materials reached a stable level when the grain size increased from over 1.0 to 2.0 mm and decreased when the grain size increased over 2.0 mm; Water absorption is lowest when the size of the husk is <0.1 mm and from 1.0-1.5 mm. Based on the survey results, the authors have designed, trial production of PE/rice husk composite piles for erosion control works in Vinh Long province.