Study of mechanical and thermal properties of banana carbon composites of epoxy resin

This project highlights the experimental investigation on the effect of mechanical, thermal stability and EMI shielding on composite laminates of banana carbon and fly ash reinforced with epoxy resin which has been considerably studied from a scientific and a commercial point of view. These materials are predominantly attractive for their reduced environmental impact and the globally satisfying aesthetical properties. Surrounded by the common matrices used for the development of advanced composites, epoxy resin has attained dominance among its counterpart because of its admirable properties including chemical, thermal and electrical resistance, mechanical properties and dimensional stability. SEM data reveals the homogeneous distribution of Fly ash/ banana carbon powder/ epoxy polymer composites. This confirms tensile, impact and bending strength of these composites. Thermal stability values clearly indicates as increasing the concentration fly ash/ banana carbon powder in the polymer matrix increases the decomposition temperature hence higher the thermal stability of 2% fly ash with 8% banana carbon powder. Experimental data of prepared composites observed the maximum tensile, impact and bending strengths of 2% fly with and 2% banana carbon powder, 4% fly ash with epoxy and 2% fly ash with 4% banana carbon powder epoxy composites because of the homogeneous distribution of fly ash and banana carbon particles in the matrix, above 2% and 4% of carbon powder decreases tensile and bending strength of the epoxy polymer composites due to the agglomeration of carbon powder and fly ash particles which leads to decreases Vander Waal's force of attraction between the particles and the polymer matrix. Wear test was conducted for all polymer composites. Few composites showed higher wear resistance due to effective bonding between fly ash chemosphere particles with banana carbon powder in polymer matrix, in particular 2% fly ash with 2% banana carbon. The EMI shielding effectiveness shows more power loss was observed in 2% fly ash with 6% banana carbon. Further samples will be measured thoroughly using vector network analyzer, for the absorption, reflection and transmission of microwave radiation. Hence fly ash/ banana carbon powder /epoxy composites finds several important technological applications.