This award is to support a cooperative research by Dr. Patricia Heiden, Department of Chemistry at Michigan Technological University, Houghton and Dr. Ahmed Moustafa, National Research Center, Cairo, Egypt. They plan to do research on preparation of rice-waste reinforced urea-formaldehyde composites with improved moisture resistance.
Intellectual Merit: The intellectual merits for the new urea-formaldehyde (UF) composites lay in combining rice agri-waste reinforcement and modified UF adhesive to achieve effective reinforcement with good mechanical properties while retaining conventional processing. Rice straw flour and rice hull will replace all or part of wood reinforcement in UF composites by combining rice hull, straw flour, and wood flour and bonding using thermoplastic-modified UF adhesive. UF will be modified by in situ radical polymerization of hydrophobic (MMA) and hydrophilic (HEMA or AM) acrylic monomers. Objectives are to determine maximum rice-waste reinforcement with a thermoplastic modified UF that gives reduced moisture uptake (previously shown by Heiden in wood composites) and the same or better mechanical properties compared to wood-only composites. Key data to be collected are Notched Izod impact strength and internal bond strength to assess mechanical properties and equilibrium moisture content (EMC) and thickness swell to assess moisture resistance. Key research variables to achieve goals include direct thermoplastic modification of rice surfaces (radical initiation on rice surface), interfacial bonding studies between rice surfaces and modified UF (SEM), and optimizing rice composition in the composite (mechanical tests). Modification of ricewaste surfaces by thermoplastic, evaluation of rice-waste reinforcement in thermoplastic modified UF, and effects of mixed rice-waste reinforcement on UF composite properties do not appear to have been studied before.
Broader Impacts: Using rice-waste reinforcement can bring economic, environmental, and educational benefits to the US and Egypt, since rice is a major crop in both economies. Use of rice straw or hull in place of all or part of wood flour brings additional crop value to farmers, while processing rice waste could result in new local industries. Demand for wood composites is growing world-wide, but at some point wood alone will be unable to meet demand. Providing agriculturally-based alternatives to wood can alleviate growing stress on limited forests and is economically and environmentally cost-effective to many nations that do not have forest resources, but could use agriculturally-sourced reinforcement which reduces petroleum-demand through shipping costs and, being based on annual crops, may provide a less variable cost basis for local industries. Educational and possible long term environmental and economic benefits should accrue through the involvement of several junior scientists. Agri-waste reinforcement is still a young field, but one with increasing importance to global environmental and economic well-being. Having young scientists learn about and gain experience in this area may stimulate them to continue in this field of research, and to grow this as a research area at their home institutions. To further promote this end the work will be presented in Egypt and publications will be in journals selected by the Egyptian partner to ensure wide availability in Egypt.
This project is being supported under the US-Egypt Joint Fund Program, which provides grants to scientists and engineers in both countries to carry out these cooperative activities.
