Production of waste tea and date seed added biodegradable polylactic acid thermoplsatic filament and investigation of mechanical properties

The disadvantages of petroleum-based plastics with limited raw material resources during production and disappearance in nature increase the search for bio-based organic composite materials. Poly (lactic acid) (PLA), which has been widely used in recent years, is obtained from corn starch or sugar cane. However, these natural resources, which are necessary for human life, are also not unlimited. For a sustainable production, the consumption of these resources should also be reduced. For this purpose, 1 in the world ranking on tea consumption. PLA composite materials filled with domestic tea waste and date seed in certain proportions by weight, adding functionality to tea waste and the waste core of palm fruit due to the fibrous structure of the palm tree in Turkey, which is next, tensile samples were produced with a 3-dimensional printer and their stresses were compared with unfilled PLA. First, the filling materials were ground using a ring mill in order to bring them into powder form, and the screening process was carried out using a spiral sieve in order to size the particles. The physical mixture prepared from the combinations of 90 % PLA + 10 % tea, % 90 PLA + 10 % date seed, 90 % PLA + 5 % tea +5% date seed was granulated using a double screw extruder by melt mixing process. The bio-composite materials obtained after that were made into filaments with a diameter of 1.75 mm in a single screw extruder and tensile samples were produced with a 3D printer in accordance with ASTM standards. According to the test results, it has been determined that it is possible to turn the composites produced into useful products and to reduce PLA consumption with it.