Fabrication and Mechanical Testing of Egg Shell Particles Reinforced Al-Si Composites

Abstract

The production of chicken eggs on a widespread industrial level has led to the generation of a large amount of egg shells. These egg shells are considered to be bio-hazardous waste materials although they are a rich source of amino acids and minerals. In the present investigation, effort has been made to incorporate waste poultry egg shell particles (ESP) both in carbonized (C) as well as uncarbonized (UC) form into the matrix of an Aluminum-Silicon (Al-Si) alloy to improve its mechanical properties. Various mechanical properties of the resulting composites such as tensile strength, modulus of elasticity, hardness, toughness, impact and compressive strengths have been determined and found to increase after the addition of the ESPs confirming that the incorporation of waste ESPs in the Al-Si matrix serve as reinforcements. The increase in mechanical properties such as the hardness (10.2% - UC, 19% - C), tensile (6.61% - UC, 10.61% - C), compressive (9.12% - UC, 63.94% - C) and impact strengths (30.07% - UC, 302.35% - C) is more pronounced in the case of carbonized ESPs. Field-Emission Scanning Electron Microscopy (FE-SEM) has been conducted to determine the compositions of the matrix materials as well as the composites.

Keywords

• Egg shell
• Metal matrix composites
• Chemical and physical properties