AZIMATUL HAWARIAH BINTI ISMAIL B041510209 “DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A THERMAL INSULATION MATERIAL FROM RICE STRAW USING HOT-PRESS” CHAPTER 1 1

AZIMATUL HAWARIAH BINTI ISMAIL B041510209 “DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A THERMAL INSULATION MATERIAL FROM RICE STRAW USING HOT-PRESS” CHAPTER 1 1

AZIMATUL HAWARIAH BINTI ISMAIL
B041510209
“DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A THERMAL INSULATION MATERIAL FROM RICE STRAW USING HOT-PRESS”
CHAPTER 1
1.0 INTRODUCTION
The Malaysia’s tropical climate is very favourable for the production of various unique fruits and vegetable as well as for palm oil and paddy. This country is very rarely affected by hurricane or other natural disaster. Malaysia has a humidity level of 90% due to its location which is close to the equator. The weather is hot and humid for whole year which are suitable for many type of agriculture such as rubber, oil palm, and rice occupy the mass of agricultural lands. Apart from that, there will be a waste material from agricultural production which can cause the hazards resulting from burning it or leaving it to deteriorate in the field. So, the utilization of waste material from agricultural production operation can assist in reducing some waste management problems.
Rice straw is an agricultural waste which can perform as a raw material source for building material. Straw is defined as a stems or stalks of certain agricultural product which can get from cereals, chiefly wheat, rice, barley, oat and rye. When cereal crops are processed after harvest a number of “by-products” are created, each containing varying quantities of chaff, straw, and weed seeds, as well as some grain (Hilman, 1981). Same goes to the rice straw. Rice straw is a low- cost material, renewable nature of straw, easy availability and even suitable for building material. In the making of rice straw building material, their physical, mechanical, thermal insulation and chemical properties are should be considered.
The term thermal insulations refers to material that have been used to reduce the rate of heat transfer, or the methods and processes used to reduce heat transfer. Thermal insulation can keep an enclosed area such as building warm, or it can keep the inside cold. Rice straw will be interesting material as filler in biodegradable polymer composites, due to its good thermal stability compared to other agricultural residue (Lee SY, 2004a).

Straw bales provide a decent thermal insulation values of 0.067 W/mK that abundant less than the wood and other building raw material (Goodhew and Griffiths, 2005). Most studies dealing with insulation material (cork, bark, rice straw, hemp, etc.) shows that the low densities between 170 kg/m³ and 260 kg/m³ and low thermal conductivity coefficients between 0.0475 W/mK and 0.0697 W/mK. (Kain et al., 2013; Wei et al., 2015; Ali and Alabdulkarem, 2017). Besides that, an experiment of low density boards with a mix of wheat straw and corn pith of has been done. Different experiment has been done shows that the bale density ranges from 54.6 kg/m³ -78.3 kg/m³ for barley straw bales and 81 kg/m³ -106.3 kg/m³ for each oat and wheat straw bales (Watts et al., 1995). Furthermore, another experiment has been done and the results shows that the equilibrium wetness content is not affected by the density of the sample. From the experiment, the results shows that the thickness swell is larger than linear growth because of the orientation of fibres, parallel to the faces board (Wang, D. Sun, 2002).
In this paper, we will investigate the effect of heating of rice straw board using hot-press, rice straw board density, rice straw board particle size and ambient temperature on the properties of the rice straw as a thermal insulation board. We will also find out whether the rice straw thermal insulation board tend to be interest for energy saving for purposes when it is used in building insulation material.

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1.1 PROBLEM STATEMENT
In Malaysia, bricks are widely used as a raw material source for building material. Not everyone knows that in the making of brick use a very high energy consumption and can cause environmental pollution as the wall materials have great impact on the development of the building. To protect our nature from being pollute and to overcome the energy consumption, there are various ways should be taken to develop a new environment-friendly building material. One of the ways to protect our nature is produce an insulating material by using agriculture waste product or in other words from renewable resources such as wheat straw, oat straw and others. These agriculture waste have their own advantages as an insulating material due to their hollow structure, low density and have a great characteristics of heat insulation. Furthermore, the uses of straw not only solve the problem of straw as a waste product but is also help the building to be more comfortable during hot season. In this experiment, we will investigate the ability of the rice straw to become a new thermal insulation material. Therefore, to improve the rice straw thermal insulating properties and efficiencies, we will use hot-pressing due to its simple and efficient process.

1.2 OBJECTIVES
The following objectives is made in order to achieve the target of this project:
To produce the thermal insulation board from rice straw material using hot-press.

To develop a suitable test for the rice straw board using mechanical and physical properties.

1.3 SCOPE OF STUDY
1.3.1 Material
The percentage of the mixture of the rice straw that we will use in the composite is between 0% – 5%.
1.3.2 Temperature
To test the rice straw thermal insulating board, we will use certain temperature which is between 20 °C to 50°C

1.3.3 Mechanical Test
In this experiment, we will use three types of mechanical test to prove the mechanical and physical properties such as:
Tensile test
Hardness test
Thermal conductivity test
REFERENCES
Wang, D. Sun, X.S., (2002). Low density particleboard from wheat straw and corn pith. Industrial Crops and Products, 15(1), pp.43–50.

S. Goodhew, R. Griffiths, Sustainable earth walls to meet the building regulation,Energy Build. 37 (5) (2005) 451–459.

Lee SY, Yang HS, Kim HJ, Jeong CS, Lim BS, Lee JN (2004a) Creep behavior and manufacturing parameters of wood flour filled polypropylene composites Compos. Struct. 65:459-469 http://greenpressinitiative.org/AgriculturalResidues.

Hillman, G. 1981, Reconstructing crop husbandry practices from charred remains of crops. In: Mercer, R. ed. Farming practice in British prehistory. Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, pp 123-162.
Watts, K.C., Wilkie, K.I., Tompson, K., and Corson, J, 1995, Thermal and mechanical properties of straw bales as they relate to a straw house. Canadian Society of Agricultural Engineering, Paper no. 1995-209.

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