Potentials of castor seed shell as a reinforcement in aluminum matrix composite development

Abstract

Castor seed shell is solid waste discarded after retrieving the seed and contributes to environmental hazard and pollution. The utilization of this solid waste in the development of less dense and low cost reinforcement for aluminum matrix composite is the focus of this paper. The high cost and relative scarcity of synthetic reinforcements for aluminum motivated this study. The elemental compositions of the castor seed shell ash were determined using X-ray fluorescence while the chemical bonds in the shell ash were identified by Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. The microstructure study of the shell ash was done with scanning electron microscope complemented by EDX and physical properties of the castor shell powder was carried out using the density determination. CuO, SiO2 and Na2O were the major constituents of the castor shell ash while K2O, MgO, P2O5, Fe2O3, Al2O3, BaO, CuO, ZnO, TiO2 and ZrO2 were found to be present in traces. FTIR detected a numbers of peaks which implies that castor shell ash is a complex structure with single, double and triple bonds. The micro-analysis by EDX of the castor seed shell ash consists of carbon (C), oxygen (O), calcium (Ca), silicon (Si), aluminum (Al), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K) and the density of the ash is 0.7318 g/cm3. Employing this natural waste material derivatives in developing aluminum matrix composite will not only reduce solid waste burden but provide environmental friendly less dense material at low cost and thus contributes to green economy.