Water absorption, flexural properties and morphological characterization of chicken feather fiber-wood sawdust hybrid reinforced waste paper-cement bio-composites

Abstract This work investigates the influence of blending waste paper and cement at fixed proportion with varying proportions of chicken feather fiber (CFF) and wood saw dust (WSD) as reinforcements. Samples produced were tested for flexural properties and water absorption potentials. The outcome showed that with increasing CFF content and reducing WSD content, water absorption reduced while flexural strength, modulus of ruptures (MOR) and modulus of elasticity (MOE) increases. MOR and MOE were at peaked when the ratio of CFF to WSD was 3:2 while flexural strength reached it crescendo at 4:1 of CFF to WSD. It was noticed that higher CCF content from 3 to 5 wt% gave better results in most of the investigated properties compared to WSD. Therefore, it was concluded that low quantity of WSD is needed to form a synergy with CFF in order to achieve optimum results. Well dispersed CFF-WSD phase in waste paper-cement based composites was observed to be responsible for the enhancement in the investigated properties.