Lightweight Biocomposites Board for Sustainable Environment

• Main Author: A. Zuraida
• Format: Conference Paper
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: Fiber > Protein > Composite > Mechanical Properties > Morphology
• Online Access: http://ddms.usim.edu.my/handle/123456789/6127

As a result of the depletion of petroleum resources coupled with increasing awareness in environmental friendly issues, engineering are being integrated to provide the impetus for new materials and products that are compatible with the environment and independent of fossil fuels. Bio-composites derived from plant-derived fiber and crop/bio-derived plastics (biopolymer/biopiastics) are more Eco-friendly and fit well into this new paradigm shift. These materials also can form the basis for sustainable and Eco-efficient products that often results in biodegradable and lightweight structures having high stiffness and tailored properties for specific applications. Thereby, main objective of this work is to develop biocomposites board by using the thermosetting protein-based materials which derived from renewable feedstock such as egg white proteins (albumen). The investigation is about the effect of fibre content on the physical and mechanical properties of the cottonlalbumen composites (CAC). The composites structures, functional chemical groups and thermal stability were characterized by XRD, FTlR and TGA analysis, respectively. The fiber content in the CAC was varied from 0 to 16% w/w. As expected, the incorporation of cotton fiber produces a substantial increase in term of density, strength and toughness of the CAC. The maximum tensile strength of 8 MPa and impact strength of 18.0 kj/m², respectively, was found in the CAC with 10% w/w of fiber content. The morphology structures examined by using SEM justify the experimental results obtained from the mechanical analysis. The mechanical strength of the composite was optimized with the addition of 10% w/w cotton fiber because of sufficient wettability of the matrix albumen with the cotton fiber. This is also attributed due to close packing and entanglement of the fibers.