Transforming Waste Cotton and Polyester Fabrics with Polypropylene Packaging Waste into Sustainable Composite Materials for Enhanced Sound Properties
摘要
Textile waste presents a significant environmental challenge, emerging both from the manufacturing and processing stages of textile products and from end-of-life products that have been used by consumers. Addressing textile reuse and recycling is essential to reduce environmental impact when compared to alternatives like incineration and landfilling. Repurposing textile waste as components in composite structures has gained attraction as a sustainable approach to convert waste into value-added products. On the other hand, the packaging sector, including mostly disposable products made up of polyethylene and polypropylene, also causes a large amount of waste. These polymers’ thermoplastic characteristics allow them to function as binders in textile-based composite structures. In this study, fiber-reinforced composites are produced using waste cotton and polyester fabrics and waste polypropylene packaging materials. In this context, plastic wastes converted into plate form by hot press method are laminated to waste cotton and polyester fabrics. Then these laminated surfaces are shredded by using an industrial type of knife mill and placed in a hot press for the production of recycled fiber reinforced composite panels. The produced panels are subjected to two more additional shredding processes and the effect of recycling degree (1, 2 and 3) on the acoustic properties including sound absorption coefficient and sound transmission loss of the produced structures is examined. This study aims to demonstrate the potential of thermoplastic composites as a recyclable raw material with adequate acoustic properties, suitable for applications in the automotive and construction sectors.