PREPARATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF OIL PALM EMPTY BUNCHES POWDER AS A FILLER OF POLYPROPYLENE/ NATURAL RUBBER

The objective of this study was to determine the characteristics of Oil Palm Empty Bunch Powder (OPEBP) into nano particles used as Polypropylene (PP) and Natural Rubber (NR) fillers into elastomeric thermoplastic composite nanocomposite (TPE). The method performed in OPEBP processing into nano particles is used by the method of ball mill and coprecipitation. While the manufacture of nano thermoplastic elastomer composite is done by the internal mixer of laboplastomil. The mixing
process was carried out with variation of OPEBP nano composition (0,2,4,6,8,10) wt% mixed thermoplastic (PP) and (NR) and PP-g-MA as compatibilizer. The result of internal mixer was done sample mold, to characterize the test of mechanical properties with JIS K 6781 standard. The characterization results of X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) show that the OPEBP crystalline diameter size is 26.91 nm with monoclinic crystalline structure. phase SiO2 and COMgO4Si with dhkl (011), the elements contained are Si, O, C, Mg. The result of mechanical analysis was obtained
by increasing the strength of dance and elastic modulus with the increase of OPEBP nanoparticle composition, the result of XRD analysis of TPE composite nano showed that this diffraction angle shift indicates the intercalation between nanoparticles with thermoplastic PP and NR. The morphological results showed that the homogeneous mixture was evenly distributed and had a porosity of 1.254%.