Eco-friendly and Affordable Composites Based on Waste Rubber Loaded with Polypropylene and Bagasse Fibers for Flexible Flooring Tiles

Synthetic polymer degradation takes decades to decompose and harms the environment. The polymer should be reused to decrease their accumulation. In this study, devulcanized waste rubber (WR), recycled polypropylene (RPP), and bagasse fiber (BF) with different ratios were subjected to study the effect of RPP and bagasse fiber (BF) addition on composites' mechanical properties that included tensile strength (TS), Young's modulus, and elongation. The hardness, abrasion and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) were carried out. The experimental testing on the investigated composites showed that adding RPP and BF improved the (TS). Increment is observed for the gel fraction values, showing an adhesion between rubber, plastic and bagasse. The hardness of composites was improved with the addition of RPP and BF. The abrasion loss emphasizes the positive effect of loading RPP and BF into WR with reasonable thermal stability.