Study of Waste Jute Fibre Panels (Corchorus capsularis L.) Agglomerated with Portland Cement and Starch

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental study on the bond behaviour of cement panels reinforced with plant fibres from the recycling of waste jute bags, using starch as a plasticiser. During processing, different proportions of jute (5 wt %, 10 wt %, 15 wt %, and 20 wt %) were used with respect to the weight of cement, and the mixture was exposed to a pressure of 2.6 MPa and a temperature of 100 °C. The density, swelling thickness, internal bonding, flexural strength, and thermal conductivity were studied. Mechanical tests indicated that the values of the modulus of rupture (MOR) and the modulus of elasticity (MOE) increased over time; thus, the jute particles appeared to be protected by the plasticised starch and no degradation was observed. At 28 days, the particleboard with 5% starch had an MOR of 12.82 MPa and an MOE of 3.43 GPa; these values decreased when the jute proportion was higher. The thermal conductivity varied from 0.068 to 0.085 W·m−1·K−1. The main conclusion is that jute-cement-starch composite panels can be manufactured with physical, mechanical, and thermal properties that meet the European standards for use in the construction of buildings as partitions, interior divisions, and thermal insulators.

Thermal Characterization of Recycled Materials for Building Insulation

“…Thus, major attention is being given not only to shifting from synthetic materials to natural/biological ones [1], but also to exploiting the use of waste and recycled materials for insulation purposes. Among the latter, recycled glass fiber, recycled PET, asphalt mixtures with recycled materials [21,22], recycled rubber, and recycled textile fiber (e.g., jute fiber recovered from old jute bags [23]) have been investigated in different studies, showing that their thermal conductivity is quite in line with one or the other above-mentioned materials, varying from 0.031 to 0.140 W/(m•K). Considering conventional insulating materials (e.g., synthetic, sheep wool, glass wood, cellulose, hemp, jute etc.)…”

“…The applicability of jute fiber mainly focused on its use for reinforced concrete, as shown in Zakaria et al [30]. The application of jute fiber is shown in Ferrandez-García et al [23], where the fibers were recovered from end-life transportation jute bags to prepare thermo-mechanical panels. An interesting solution, not only from a thermophysical point of view, but also from the eco-sustainability one, is lightweight concrete with recycled-PET aggregates (recycled polyethene terephthalate) for which a thermal conductivity of 0.034 W/(m•K) was found in [31][32][33][34].…”

Seismic and Thermal Retrofitting of Masonry Buildings with Fiber Reinforced Composite Systems: A State of the Art Review

“…There are a lot of examples of jute fiber used for concrete and mortar retrofitting in the literature. Recently, the usability of jute fibers along with lime mortar have studied by (Formisano et al, 2019) and recently (Ferrandez-García et al, 2020) have fabricated the cement panels using recycle jute fibers from jute bags, potato starch and Portland cement.…”

Eco-Sustainability of the Textile Production: Waste Recovery and Current Recycling in the Composites World

“…Lower compressive strength but higher flexural properties have been verified for concretes with 1.0 wt.% of waste cotton fibers, demonstrating a superior elasticity acquired in the final samples. Jute fibers obtained by waste bags have been introduced in different proportions up to 20 wt.%in the Portland cement by Ferrandez-García [ 73 ] for realizing prefabricated panels for interior partitions. Starch has been also introduced in the formulations as plasticizer.…”