Thermo-mechanical characterization of rice husk and rice husk ash reinforced epoxy bio-composite
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Date
2015-06
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G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand)
Abstract
Use of natural fibre along with polymeric matrix has been vigorously pursued in the last decade because of their advantages of being environment friendly, biodegradable and economical. However the inherent hydrophilic nature of fibres and hydrophobic nature of polymers pose compounding difficulties leading to non-uniform dispersion of fibres in matrix consequently leading to decrease in efficiency of composites. However these compounding difficulties can be overcome by certain modifications which can make the fibre and the matrix more compatible. In the present work rice husk along with epoxy resin has been used to develop a composite material. To reduce the inherent conflicting nature of resin and rice husk, rice husk fibres are pre-treated with NaOH. Furthermore effect of addition of another reinforcement rice husk ash on the mechanical and physical characters of the composite has been studied. Addition of rice husk to the resin results in deterioration of various mechanical properties due to the natures of the two constituents discussed above. However the decrease in mechanical strength up to 20 wt% reinforcement is insignificant and statistical analysis shows that 10 wt% and 20 wt% reinforced composites have similar behaviour. Keeping in mind the economical and environmental advantages of replacing larger quantity of polymer RH reinforcement of 20% by weight has been taken as optimum filler loading. Further to make fibre and matrix compatible, rice husk particles are pre-treated with NaOH solution of different concentration. It is observed that NaOH treatment has profound impact on the mechanical properties. However excessive deterioration of fibres at higher levels of NaOH concentration (higher than 8%) results in decrease in mechanical strengths. Silica addition also improved the properties marginally when silica was added in smaller quantities of 0-1%. At higher filling levels there was reduction in mechanical strength. SEM tests were conducted to predict the mechanism behind the changes that occurred in properties at every stage of work. The present work can provide an insight into the application of rice husk and product of its thermal degradation for developing bio-composites which are more environment friendly and at the same time have superior properties than the polymeric materials which have unfortunately become an integral part of our day to day life.
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Thesis-PhD
Keywords
thermal energy, mechanical engineering, characterization, rice husks, composting, organic fertilizers, reinforcement, ash, agricultural engineering