PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISATION OF GUM ARABIC BONDED PARTICLE BOARD MADE FROM RICE HUSK AND CANDLE WAX

Abstract

Particle boards from wood sources have negative impacts on the environment through deforestation. Binders from synthetic sources are also not economical due to high costs in some parts of the world. Agricultural waste materials like rice husk (RH) and readily available natural binders like gum Arabic (GA) are proposed as alternative component materials in particle board manufacture. This study therefore investigates the engineering performance of gum Arabic bonded particle board made from rice husk and candle wax. RH was kept at a constant 70% in the mixture, CW and GA were alternated at 0/30%, 5/25%, 10/20%, 15/15%, 20/10%, and 25/5 % respectively. The mixture was passed through cold and hot presses with compressions to produce particle board samples. The samples were micro-characterised using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Energy-dispersive   spectroscopy (EDS). The Gum arabic bonded particle board were subjected to various engineering tests. The SEM results showed poor compaction of the material especially as CW content increased. The EDS results showed that caron and silica constituted about 75% of the matrix indicating free of toxic substances. The maximum compressive, flexural and split tensile strengths were 3.88, 0.33 and 1.90 N/mm² respectively at 10/20% mix even with the lowest density of 565.29 kg/m³. The water absorption and swelling in thickness decreased significantly with increase of CW with values of 2.72 and 0.00% at 25/5 %. The boards may be classified as medium-density since the densities were above 560Kg/m³.