Characterization Of Nano-Structured Oil Palm Ash And Its Influence As Filler In Epoxy Composites
Loading...
Date
2012-06
Authors
Hashim, Mohammad Fizree
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
The utilization of oil palm ash, a bio-agricultural waste from oil palm mills was studied by developing it into nano-structured material and as nanofiller/reinforcement on epoxy composites. The raw oil palm ash was subjected to high-energy ball milling for 30 h and was converted into a nano-structured material. The nano-structured oil palm ash was characterized for its particle size and crystallinity index by using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and X-ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis. The crystallite size obtained from TEM and XRD was found to be 50 nm and 54.32 nm respectively, and the crystallinity index of oil palm ash was 66.54%. The shape and texture of raw and nano-structured oil palm ash were studied using scanning electron microscopy. The raw oil palm ash had an irregular shape with spongy and porous structure, while the nano-structured powder had a mostly irregular and crushed shape. The elemental studies of oil palm ash used Energy Dispersive X-ray (EDX) analysis, XRD, and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). The elemental compositions found in oil palm ash were silica, potassium oxide, calcium oxide, magnesium oxide, aluminium oxide, and iron oxide. The effect of filler loading, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 % of nano-structured oil palm ash on the physical, mechanical, thermal and morphology properties of epoxy composites was studied. It was observed that incorporation filler loading of nano-structured oil palm ash increased the density, void content and water absorption of composites as increased on filler loading. For the mechanical properties, increased in tensile strength, tensile modulus, flexural strength, flexural modulus and impact strength were observed as increased of filler loading up to 3% and then decreased beyond 3% filler loading.
Description
Keywords
Characterization of nano-structured oil palm ash , influence as filler in epoxy composites