Abstract:
The textile industry plays a significant role in the Sri Lankan economy. However, the management of
textile waste has become a critical challenge faced by the industry. Most of the generated textile
waste typically goes to open dumpsites, disposed of through open burning or incinerated. However,
due to the large volumes of waste generation, the textile sector has paid clear attention to seeking
better solutions to manage their waste. As such, there has been an increased interest to develop novel
materials from industrial waste. Hence, the aim of this work is to develop and characterize composite
materials using post-industrial polyester textile waste as fiber reinforcement and waste packaging
materials as the polymer matrix as a new solution to the generated waste. The materials have been
selected as polyester textile waste as the fiber reinforcement and thermoplastic waste packaging
material as the matrix. Both materials were collected from the Sri Lankan textile industries. The
composites containing 0%wt, 2.5%wt, 5%wt, 7.5%wt, 10%wt, 15%wt, and 20%wt reinforcement
were manufactured using the compression moulding technique. No additional binders were added.
The uniaxial tensile test was conducted according to the ASTM D 638 standard, and the Ultimate
Tensile Strength and Young’s Modulus were focused for the study. According to the obtained results,
the Ultimate Tensile Strength and the Young’s Modulus have increased up to a certain percentage of
fiber reinforcement weight in the composite. Moreover, both uniaxial tensile strength and young’s
modulus have reduced with increasing reinforcement fiber loading when passing that particular
percentage. Accordingly, among the seven types of composite materials developed with different
fiber reinforcement weight percentages, 7.5% wt. waste polyester textile fiber-reinforced composite
shows the best performance for the uniaxial tensile properties. Experimental findings show that the
uniaxial tensile properties of the developed composite show a positive trend to use as a substitute for
non-structural applications such as particleboards.
Keywords: Polyester textile fiber; Textile waste; Thermoplastic; Tensile properties
