The main goal of the present work was to develop a value-added product of biodegradable material for sustainable packaging. The use of agriculture waste-derived carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) mainly is to reduce the cost involved in the development of the film, at present commercially available CMS is costly. The main focus of the research is to translate the agricultural waste-derived CMC to useful biodegradable polymer suitable for packaging material. During this process CMC was extracted from the agricultural waste mainly sugar cane bagasse and the blends were prepared using CMC (waste derived), gelatin, agar and varied concentrations of glycerol; 1.5% (sample A), 2% (sample B), and 2.5% (sample C) was added. Thus, the film derived from the sample C (gelatin + CMC + agar) with 2.0% glycerol as a plasticizer exhibited excellent properties than other samples A and B. The physiochemical properties of each developed biodegradable plastics (sample A, B, C) were characterized using Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR) spectroscopy and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). The swelling test, solubility in different solvents, oil permeability coefficient, water permeability (WP), mechanical strength of the produced material was claimed to be a good material for packaging and meanwhile its biodegradability (soil burial method) indicated their environmental compatibility nature and commercial properties. The reflected work is a novel approach, and which is vital in the conversion of organic waste to value-added product development. There is also another way to utilize commercial CMC in preparation of polymeric blends for the packaging material, which can save considerable time involved in the recovery of CMC from sugarcane bagasse.

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The present paper investigates the behaviour of a polymer matrix beam reinforced with graphene and carbon fibres at nano and micro level reinforcements, respectively, to study mainly the strength aspects for structural applications. However an attempt has also been made to use a combination of both micro and nano level fillers in both individual and combined forms as reinforcements. The addition of graphene and carbon fibres in the control beams was varied from 0.1 to 0.4% percent by weight of polymer matrix. Dispersion of graphene was carried out using ultrasonic energy. Composite beams were tested under flexural in order to evaluate their mechanical property such as load-deflection criteria. These results were then compared with those obtained from plain polymer beams. The present work also investigates the optimum percentage of graphene and carbon fibres as individual and combination fillers that gave the best results in terms of enhanced mechanical properties and economical aspects as well. Scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersion X-ray spectroscopy was conducted to examine the interfacial surface adhesion between the fillers and the polymer matrix. Reinforcement of polymer beams with graphene alone by weight of the polymer matrix showed enhanced results when compared to carbon fibres alone while the use of combined nano and micro reinforcements showed performance lying in between nano and micro fillers in the polymer. Flexural strength is enhanced by 35% compared to plain control beams when graphene was used as reinforcement fillers in the polymer matrix.

Epoxy resins, due to their high stiffness, ease of processing, good heat, and chemical resistance obtained from cross-linked structures, have found applications in electronics, adhesives coatings, industrial tooling, and aeronautic and automotive industries. These resins are inherently brittle, which has limited their further application. The emphasis of this study is to improve the properties of the epoxy resin with a low-concentration (up to 0.4% by weight) addition of Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNTs). Mechanical characterization of the modified composites was conducted to study the effect of MWCNTs infusion in the epoxy resin. Nanocomposites samples showed significantly higher tensile strength and fracture toughness compared to pure epoxy samples. The morphological studies of the modified composites were studied using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM).

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This article confirms experimental results by finite element analysis. The study includes meshing the specimen of size 40 3 12 3 6 mm 3 . The model is constructed in DesignModeler (ANSYS Workbench). Multi-walled carbon nanotubes are aligned in different angles to correlate the experimental results. The modelling method employed for analysis is based on weight ratio. The proportion of multi-walled carbon nanotubes is 0.25%, 0.5%, 0.75% and 1% by weight of polymer matrix (epoxy resin) for different specimens. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes are dispersed in epoxy matrix using ultrasonic energy. Composite beams were tested under flexure in order to evaluate their mechanical property such as loaddeflection criteria by three-point bending test. Finite element method results were in close agreement with the experimental outcomes with different orientation of multi-walled carbon nanotubes into the matrix considered.

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