DEVELOPMENT OF GREEN COMPOSITE S USING DECOMPOSED BAMBOO POWDER

The purpose of this study is to investigate the mechanical properties of green composites made from lignin and cellulose extracted from bamboo. The raw material, consisting of bamboo powder and pure water were put into the reactor and sealed tightly. To de compose the raw material, the temperature of reactor was elevated by the ring furnace to a specified level and maintained for 10 min. For investigate the ability of the decomposed bamboo powder to be molded without the use of a binder, the compression mold ing technique was employed. The mechanical characteristics of fabricated composites were measured under four point bending load. The Young’s modulus of fabricated composites was also measured by using dynamic hardness tester. The change in amount of holoce llulose, α - cellulose, and lignin during molding was quantitatively evaluated by using the milled composite. Test results showed that the bending strength was increased with increase of temperature of molding. Fracture surface observation revealed that when molding temperature was high, fine surface was appeared at fractured surface, while rough surface was appeared when molding temperature was low. These results suggested that the thermoset ability of lignin was enhanced when molding temperature was high. B y enhancing the thermoset ability of lignin, bending characteristics of composites was improved. Quantitative determination results showed that when molding temperature was higher than decomposed temperature of bamboo powder, the change in composition was appeared. Therefore, excessively high molding temperature is not effective because of the α - cellulose might be decompose.