Abstract
The utilization of composite materials is increasing at a growing rate in almost all types of products, due to their strength-to-stiffness ratio. From this perspective, natural waste composites, i.e., wood waste composites, have also been investigated for their effective and sustainable employment. This paper deals with the application of hard and soft wood waste (i.e., acacia and cedar wood) with epoxy resin polymer to develop high strength and thermally stable wood composites. Mechanical (tensile, flexural, impact, and hardness) and thermal properties of samples are studied using Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) and Thermo Gravimetric Analysis (TGA), respectively. The properties are evaluated by varying the type of wood waste and its percentage by weight. Based on the Taguchi Orthogonal Array Mixture Design, eighteen experiments are investigated. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) results show that wood waste type and wood waste content have a significant effect on all mechanical properties. From the TGA analysis, it is predicted that both types of wood waste composites exhibit similar thermal-induced degradation profiles in terms of the initial and final degradation temperatures. From the DSC results, higher glass transition temperature Tg is detected in 10% of the hardwood waste composite, and a reducing tendency of glass transition temperature Tg is observed with exceeding wood waste content. Moreover, hardwood waste at 10% demonstrated improved decomposition temperature Td, due to strong adhesion between waste and matrix.
Highlights
The wood waste for consumable items is getting prime attention due to stringent environmental laws and waste management issues [1]
Several compositions of wood waste composites were analyzed by varying the weight ratios of epoxy and hardener
It can be concluded that the epoxybased composite samples manufactured with both types of wood waste show adequate mechanical strength and thermal performance
Summary
The wood waste for consumable items is getting prime attention due to stringent environmental laws and waste management issues [1]. The controlled usage of synthetic adhesive is decisive to eliminate the toxic and environmental impacts [6] Other resins, such as soy-based resin and polyurethane resin, must be considered as an alternative to toxic resins in developing wood waste composites [7]. Among different types of resins, epoxy-resin is environmentally friendly and easier to process This resin exhibits excellent properties due to its high cross-linked characteristics, adequate strength, low cure shrinkage, increased fatigue and impact resistance, excellent thermal properties, chemical resistance, and dimensional stability [8]. The curing of epoxy-based composites is performed by adding aliphatic amines, anhydrides, and aromatics as hardeners [9,10] These properties help in developing molds in the desired shapes. Epoxy/hardener ratios and ideal curing schedules are important to attain the desired properties of composite materials [11,12,13,14,15,16]
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