Investigation of Thermal Conductivity and Sound Absorption Properties of Rice Straw Fiber/Polylactic Acid Biocomposite Material

ABSTRACT

In the last decade, there has been an increasing trend in the use of agricultural wastes as reinforcements for high value-added composite materials as an ecological approach. In our previous study, a nonwoven fabric was produced from rice straw fibers. In this study, the previously obtained nonwoven reinforcement material and the polylactic acid (PLA) in granule form are used in the hot press process to produce new single- and double-layered biocomposite materials. The characterization of the obtained composite materials is made using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Fourier-Transform Infra-red Spectroscopy (FTIR), and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) instrumental methods. The thermal conductivity and sound absorption properties of the materials are also investigated. The double-layer composite material has the highest sound absorption coefficient value, which is almost 0.99 while the single-layer material’s is around 0.34. According to the thermal conductivity measurement results, the thermal conductivity of the single-layer composite material is 0.02564 W/m.K and that of the nonwoven material produced with rice straw which is 0.01618 W/m.K. The thermal conductivity of the single-layer composite material is approximately 50% higher than that of the nonwoven material. The single-layer composite material can be preferred in industrial insulation applications since the material with a low thermal conductivity coefficient is the best choice for thermal insulation purposes.

摘要

在过去十年中, 农业废弃物作为高附加值复合材料的增强材料, 作为一种生态方法, 有越来越多的趋势. 在我们之前的研究中, 一种非织造布是由稻草纤维制成的. 在本研究中, 将先前获得的非织造增强材料和颗粒形式的聚乳酸 (PLA) 用于热压工艺, 以制备新的单层和双层生物复合材料. 利用扫描电子显微镜 (SEM)、傅里叶变换红外光谱 (FTIR) 和差示扫描量热法 (DSC) 仪器方法对所获得的复合材料进行了表征. 研究了材料的导热性能和吸声性能. 双层复合材料的吸声系数最高, 接近0.99, 而单层材料的吸声系数约为0.34. 根据热导率测量结果; 单层复合材料的导热系数为0.02564 W/m.K, 稻草非织造材料的导热系数为0.01618 W/m.K. 单层复合材料的导热系数比无纺布材料高约50%. 单层复合材料可优先用于工业隔热应用, 因为导热系数低的材料是隔热目的的最佳选择.

KEYWORDS:

• Rice straw fiber
• polylactic acid
• sound absorption
• biocomposite material
• thermal conductivity
• non-woven

关键词:

• 稻草纤维
• 聚乳酸
• 吸声
• 生物复合材料
• 导热系数
• 无纺布

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Trakya University Scientific Research Projects Unit [2017/221].