Effects of water hyacinth fiber size on sound absorption properties of advanced recycled palm oil-based polyurethane foam composite

Abstract

This work aims to study the effects of the size of water hyacinth fiber (WHF) on the properties of a rigid sound absorption material from recycled palm oil-based polyurethane foam (PUF) Polyurethane Foam Compositecomposite. By fixing the NCO index of 100 with the WHF content of 1%wt, the sizes of WHF were varied from 80, 40, and 20 mesh to study the properties of PUF. The compression strength, optical microscopy, and sound absorption coefficient (SAC) of the PUF composite were tested. Reducing the mesh size of WHF from 80 to 20, the compression strength of PUF increased from 0.33 to 0.47 N/mm2. PUF with a WHF mesh size of 80 and a SAC value of 0.92 was suitable for sound absorption. Therefore, the PUF derived from both water hyacinth and used palm oil could be used as a promising alternative green material for sound absorption application.