You have no items in your shopping cart.
ABSTRACT
Rice husks have been a major type of biofibre and due to their properties, they are used with polymer to prepare composites. This work is aimed at the Characterization of Rice husk for use in reinforcing Polyethylene. To fully characterize the rice husk/polyethylene composite, the rice husk samples were obtained as a by-product from a rice mill at Uselu, Benin City in Edo state. The rice husks were subjected to mechanical characterization which includes Tensile testing, Hardness testing and Moisture absorption. Prior to the mechanical characterization, the rice husks were carbonized at three different temperatures; 400℃, 600℃ and 800℃ respectively. This experiment was carried out by measuring and mixing proportions of the rice husk with Low- Density Polyethylene. The results were obtained by conducting tensile strength tests using the Universal Testing Machine (INSTRON 3345). The results show that the rice husk increases the mechanical strength of low–density polyethylene (LDPE) with the tensile strength recorded to be at 25 MPa, 32 MPa and 44 MPa at 400℃, 600℃ and 800℃ respectively. The hardness strength of the sample was also recorded to be the greatest at 600℃ due to better interfacial bonding between the polyethylene matrices with the values at 45 MPa (600℃), 19 MPa (800℃) and 12 MPa (400℃). Due to the better interaction between rice husk and low-density polyethylene, vi the resistance to water absorption is increased with values recorded to be at 19.2, 17.1 and 16.7g/m 3 respectively. TABLE OF CON
