Physico-Mechanical Responses of Polypropylene-CaCO3 Composite

Copyright © 2013 Samson Oluropo Adeosun et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This study examines some physical and mechanical characteristics of polypropylene (PP) and calcium trioxocarbonate IV (CaCO3) composites prepared by melt blending. The mechanical (tensile strength and impact energy resistance) and physical (density and water absorption capacity) properties of the composites were evaluated using 0 %- 40 % of the filler. The results showed that 20%-CaCO3 addition improved the ultimate tensile stress by 58%, and the UTS is 84% better when 25%-CaCO3 addition is made while the impact resistance decline by 8 and 12 % respectively at these two compositions. In addition, the density only differ from that of pure PP at 25 % CaCO3 addition by 18 % increment, how-ever, water absorption increased by 400 % at 10%-CaCO3 addition