Investigation of dielectric properties of industrial waste reinforced particulate polymer composites

Abstract

Environmental awareness today motivates the worldwide researchers on the studies of industrial waste reinforced polymer composites. Rapid industrialization has resulted in the generation of huge quantity of solid and liquid wastes such as sugar, paper and pulp, fruit and food processing, distilleries, dairies, and poultries. The redundancy of industrial waste and government regulations have prompted researchers to try for industrial waste reinforced composites. Being low cost, ease of manufacturing, and high mechanical and other properties, an industrial waste represents a good alternative to the most common composites. In the present study, industrial wastes collected from different industries are used as particulate reinforcement in unsaturated polyester matrix and also in polypropylene and investigated dielectric properties. Results reveal that coupling agent treated composites produce improved dielectric strength due to improvement in compatibility between matrix and reinforcement interface. Results also reveal that industrial waste reinforced in polypropylene has more dielectric strength as compared to reinforcement in polyester. © 2014 Vijaya Kumar Nimmagadda et al.