Synthesis of a Buckwheat Husk-Reinforced Polylactide Composite for 3D Printing

Additive manufacturing has become widespread across many industries today. 3D printing offers significant opportunities for creating complex products with applications in both space and biomedicine. A particularly promising area of development is the production of biodegradable, environmentally friendly plastics. This article examines the feasibility of producing a composite material based on polylactide with added buckwheat husk using additive manufacturing. Compounds containing 10, 15, and 20 wt.% buckwheat husk were developed and analyzed. Using an extruder, the developed compounds were used to produce filaments for the creation of standardized blades using 3D printing. The tests have shown that as the proportion of buckwheat husk in standard composite samples increases, the physicomechanical properties improve: the strength of standard blade samples increases (by almost 2.5 times compared to a sample made of pure PLA), the softening temperature of the composite increases (with the addition of buckwheat husk, it rises from 65 °C to 67–72 °C), and the contact angle increases by 12–22%. The paper also examines surface changes in the resulting composites and evaluates the uniformity of filler distribution within the polymer matrix. A polymer composite based on polylactide with the addition of buckwheat husks as a filler yields a modern composite material with a wide range of applications, owing to its physicochemical and mechanical properties.