Investigation on multi functional characteristics of industrial waste recovered silicon and diamond particles filled epoxy polymer hybrid composites

Abstract

The present scenario forces researchers to reduce the raw material usage for future conservation and imposes a responsibility to reuse the waste by converting it into valuable products. With a state of potential, the components are put forward for reusing the solar grade silicon and gem industrial diamond cutting/polishing waste as effective filler particles in the epoxy-glass laminated hybrid composite. In the solar panel production stage, it is unavoidable to neglect the huge amount of solar grade silicon particles generated during the slicing of silicon ingot operation. The cutting and polishing of diamond for ornament also produces a certain amount of waste particles. The sustainable use of cutting particles in polymer composites would mitigate the problems of pollution and minimise the cost of high-valued waste disposal as well. A subject of the present study is to reuse the solar-grade silicon and diamond kerf waste particles as a potential filler to enhance the mechanical, thermal, dielectric, and erosive wear resistance properties of the epoxy-glass fiber polymer composite. newlineEpoxy resin (LY556 grade) and standard curing agent (HY951) were used as matrix material and hardener for composite preparation. All the fabricated composites were reinforced with 20 wt.% of glass fibers. The recovered silicon particles are filled in two different particle sizes of lt 50 and#956;m and lt 10 and#956;m for the production of polymer composites. Alternatively, the recovered diamond kerf particles were having particle size of lt 2 and#956;m, used as a filler in polymer matrix. Polymer composite was fabricated using a hand-layup method with constant hydraulic pressure by varying filler weight percentages of 0, 1, 3, 5, and 10%. newline newline