In this study, rice husks (RH) of various species will be manufactured into composite particleboards without a binder and with a biodegradable polymeric binder, PLA. It will also be benchmarked again the existing commercially available wood based particleboards, medium density particleboard, MDF. It is envisage that upon the success of such particulate biocomposites, their potentials in manufacturing and building industries will be explored.
Undergraduate
On completion of this project, various RH based particleboards will have been manufactured and characterised for their dimensional stability and mechanical properties. These material characteristics should also be compared with those of MDF samples to assess their applicability to the existing industries using MDFs.
None
Lab allocations have not been finalised