Experimental investigation of rice straw mineral slabs for building application

Abstract

Most modern buildings have false ceiling to provide betterthermal insulation and acoustic environment. These false ceilings are madeup of mineral boards or slabs such as gypsum boards or wood fiber boards.Among them wood fibre boards are largely used as false ceiling or wallpartition. The wood fibre boards are manufactured by blending fibreextracted from light weight softwood trees such as pinewood bonded withminerals. Nowadays, these softwoods are not easily available and lead to theincrease of production cost. So as an alternative to wood fibre boards, it isproposed to use natural fibre and blended with mineral Magnesia (MgO).The buildings are air-conditioned to provide better thermalcomfort to the occupants, which also creates occupational health issues suchas sick building syndrome. These health-related issues are created due tofungal species found in the built environment. The interior building materialsare an excellent source for microbial growth and cause respiratory-relatedproblems due to the inhalation of spores emitted by the growth of microbeson the water damped interior materials.From literature survey it was noticed that no boards weremanufactured from RS bonded with magnesia as an interior buildingmaterial. Therefore, a suitable manufacturing process needs to be identifiedto use agro-RS waste to prepare mineral slabs. These novel slabs need to becharacterized for physical, mechanical, and acoustic properties.Manufacturing of such eco-friendly boards is essential to reduce theproduction cost and utilizes the agro-waste for sustainable development ofbuilding materials. newline