Utilization of Waste Glass Powder as a Filler in Epoxy Resin Based Composite

Abstract

This work focuses on the preparation of a high-quality glass powder from broken household waste glass. The expected glass powder prepared from household waste must show a high amount of silicon dioxide with fine particle size. The processing technique used in this work is coarse grinding and high-speed vibratory milling under a variety of conditions to get the best quality of glass powder. The particle size and particle size distribution were examined by using DLS technique. The chemical composition was examined by EDX together with FT-IR and XRF spectroscopies. The morphology of all glass powders was investigated by SEM. The results showed that the wide range of particle size distribution occurred in all milling conditions, which approximately ranged from 1 to 10 µm, and the 4 h-milling time showed the smallest particle size of glass powder. The chemical analysis showed that the glass powder was rich in silica which contained about 67% of SiO2. After that, the various ratios of the glass powder/epoxy resin composites were formed by using the traditional casting method. The physical, mechanical and electrical properties were investigated for all composites. The results showed that the Hv value of the glass powder/epoxy resin composites exhibited a much higher value than that of pure epoxy resin. For the electrical properties, after added 1 wt% of glass powder into the matrix, the εr and R significantly increased. The Eb value of the composite prepared from waste glass powder showed no significant difference from the composite prepared from commercial SiO2. So, it can say that the waste glass powder can be used as a filler in the epoxy resin-based composite as well as the commercial SiO2 powder for the electrical insulting application.