International Journal of Engineering & Technology IJET-IJENS Vol:10 No:04 8 103404-0707 IJET-IJENS © August 2010 IJENS I J E N S Study of the Optimum Condition Towards the Inducing Paraffin Wax LDPE Kannan Rassiah (1) , Mohd Yuhazri Yaakob (2) , Haeryip Sihombing (2) , and Puvanasvaran Perumal (2) (1) Department of Mechanical Engineering. Politeknik Merlimau. KB 1031, Pejabat Pos Merlimau-Melaka MALAYSIA (2) Faculty of Manufacturing Engineering. Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka, Durian Tunggal-Melaka MALAYSIA Email: kannan@pmm.edu.my Abstract — Low Density Polyethelene is a thermoplastic resin extracted from petroleum based, whereas the wax is an oily organic component that is contains of alkanes, ester, polyester, and hydroxyester. The purpose of this research is to find out the optimum conditions of the wax produced by inducing LDPE. The experiment is carried out by mixing the wax and LDPE into four new polymer compositions, in which the higher value of the tensile strength, Young’s modulus , and hardness are obtained by mixing between 90 wt. % LDPE with 10 wt. % wax, rather than compared to pure LDPE. The results are 8.896 MPa, 247.602 MPa and 50.9 respectively. However, only the strength impact that has a lower value as much as 31.38 %. By SEM analysis, the improvement of mechanical properties value examined in which the most suitable of optimal composition is 90 wt. % LDPE with 10 wt. % wax. The LDPE/wax mixture produces a new polymer and alters the properties of pure LDPE. Index Term-- low density polyethylene, paraffin wax, new polymer. I. INT RODUCT ION Polymer is a long chain of repeated atoms and produced by joining the molecules which are known as monomers. The Low Density Polyethelene (LDPE) is a first grade of the Polyethylene group which was produced in 1933 by Imperial Chemical Industries by using high pressure and ‗free radical polymerisation‘ techniques [3], while the wax is an organic compound which is categorized into two types, that is natural wax and modified wax. Both types of wax create higher potential as the reinforcement agent in polymers. The reason to choose the natural wax in this research due to the cost of manufacturing as well as it widely used for consumer products. II. MATERIAL AND METHODS This research use low-density polyethylene as the matrix material in the form of pallet and the wax as reinforcement material. The wax material was obtained from the candle sticks that have been processed by the manufacturers. Most of the candles are made of parafin, but it can also made from bees wax, soya, plants as well as cow‘s fat (a side product of the beef fat), wheras the gel wax is made from paraffin and plastic. Chemically, a candle contains of various compounds such as alkanes, esters (contains acid and alcohol), polyesters, low hydroxyester alcohol, and fatty acids. The wax differs from fat because it lacks triglyceride ester glycerine propan 1,2,3 triol and three fatty acids. High melting point and hardness of karnauba candle occurs when ester is added [1]. The formulation for LDPE and wax is divided into five main compositions ratio as shown in Table 1. Every material is mixing into a beaker placed on the top of hot plate magnetic stirrer. The set up parameter for the surrounding temperature is fixed with range 95 ºC to 125 ºC with fixed rotator is 600 rpm. The blending takes about 45 minutes to produce uniform mixture. T ABLE I COMPOSITIONS RATIO OF LDPE/WAX Compositions wt. % LDPE wt. % Wax A 100 0 B 90 10 C 80 20 D 70 30 E 60 40 By using crusher machine, the compounds are processed into smaller sizes. This process is to ensure that both of the materials are uniformly mix and no lumps presence due to the smaller lumps are able to influence the accuration of data analysis. The LDPE/wax compound was compressed for 15 minutes under 20 tonnes at temperature of 175 ºC followed by cooling at room temperature. Five types of new polymer composition are cut and tested for tensile, harness, and charpy characteristics according to ASTM D-638 08, ASTM D-785 08 and ASTM D-6110 08 respectively. The microscopic observation is carried out to observe the cracked surface after all of the LDPE/wax polymer subjected into three mechanical testing. Here, the morphology of the cracked surface is observed by using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) at three types of magnifications that are 250X, 500X and 1000X, which consists of topographical, morphological and composition pictures. III. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Tensile test The test for tensile strength test is being done against the four major compositions of the mixture with the percentage of LDPE and wax in between 90 % to 40 %. This refers to the objective priority of the research that is to find the higher value of tensile strength for the LDPE/wax composition of