Assessment of Composites u sing Waste S ugarcane B agasse F ibre and Wood D ust P owder

Abstract

The present work aims to investigate relating to natural fibre-based epoxy composites. This study is dealt with the fabrication and chemical treatment evaluation of waste sugarcane bagasse fibre and wood dust powder composite. Sugarcane bagasse fibre and wood dust powder found to be good bonding owing to its properties like light-weight, high specific strength, bio-degradability and so on. The sugarcane shells are collected from local juice job and then it is chemically treated along with removal of sugar, and then dried in open atmosphere in the presence of sunlight. It is then pulverized to particle sizes of 1.0 mm, 1.5 mm, 2.0 mm and with a weight ratio of 75:25, the epoxy resins are mixed through which the fibres with 6 mm thick mould composites are made with different flat-shape. As per ASTM standards, specimens are made for conducting the experiments such as density determination, moisture absorption and mechanical tests. The sugarcane bagasse/epoxy composites (SB/EC) with wood dust powder were chemically treated with benzoic acid and sodium hydroxide for obtaining the mechanical properties. The results show that chemically treated composites have more flexural and tensile strength as compared with untreated sugar-free SB/EC. Alkali (NaoH) treatment obtains the highest flexural and tensile strength as compared with benzoic acid treatment. Both flexural and tensile strength of synthetically(chemical) treated composites, in any case, discovered lower than those of untreated sugarcane bagasse filled composite when unwashed sugarcane bagasse which contained sugar. Thus without additional chemical treatment, sugarcane bagasse perhaps used as a reinforcing agent since sugar contributes to the mechanical properties of the composites.