Extrusion Temperature and Viscosity of Various Soy Wax/Beeswax Blends

Abstract

Recent technological advancement has led to the development of automated batik printers based on the melt extrusion process as an alternative method for the batik tjanting or hand-drawn process. The study aimed to measure the throughput of an in-house design extruder and verify the range of extrusion temperature for soy wax/beeswax composition. In addition, the viscosity of the waxes was also evaluated in the extrusion temperature region. The study revealed that the throughput of the waxes at peak melt temperature was in the range of 0.00916–0.00883 g/s. Results also showed that the throughputs were increased at higher extrusion temperatures corresponding to the low viscosity of the waxes. Further additions of beeswax resulted in a decreased throughput attributed to the highly viscous nature of beeswax. The viscosity for direct deposition or extrusion of soy wax/beeswax blends for batik printing application was measured to be in the region of 0.010 and 0.025 Pa s. Further viscosity analysis estimated that soy wax has the highest tendency to change rapidly with temperature. Thus, the temperature of soy wax needs to be precisely controlled to maintain a consistent viscosity during extrusion. The result of this study contributes toward establishing alternative resist materials and their processing temperatures to ensure quality batik patterns are produced using the batik printer.