Reuse by-products to reduce pollution

BANGALORE: The smaller branches of trees, waste wood pieces and saw dust which otherwise go wasted, can now be turned into useful composite materials by coupling with plastic polymers.Scientists from the Institute of Wood Science and Technology (IWST) have introduced this technology for the first time in the country.“This technology of manufacturing plant fibre-based composites will reduce the cost of production of wood and at the same time reduce negative impact on environment,” said Dr Ajay Karmarkar, scientist working on the project, IWST.Many industries import this technology from China.“The experiment was being conducted for the past 10 years and finally we came to a conclusion that the byproducts can be used by automobile, packaging and textile industries.Plastic hangers and buckets, wooden door frames and windows can be replaced by this ecofriendly composite material” he said.Relating about the advantages he said, “Once the plastic is recycled its usage is reduced as it loses stifness.But it is useful when synthesized with wood fibres using a coupling agent.Besides improving the stiffness by three folds the tensile strength is also increased by about 70 per cent.” “In addition, when compared to wood, the cost also gets reduced by about 50 percent and by-products are 100 per cent environment friendly,” he added.Meanwhile, city based industries have welcomed the idea of new technology.Prakash N Raikar, president, KASSIA, said, “The WPC is an advanced technology.It strikes a balance between the environment through conserving wood and controlling pollution by recycling plastic waste.” The process: “Fibrous material from wood, bamboo or jute along with the plastic polymers are put into the twin screw extruder machine which melts, mixes and pumps the product.The by-product when put into pelletizer gets chopped i n t o small granules” said, Karmarkar.Inorder to get the required size and shape the granules are put into the injection moulding machine.Finally the WPC is tested for its tensile, stiffness and compression strength.