Dust Cotton Fiber as an Added Material in Gypsum Boards

Abstract

This research was to study dust cotton fiber as an added material in gypsum boards. The dust cotton from spinning mill was mixed with gypsum to form gypsum boards in various ratios e.g., 0 %, 5 %, 10 %, 15 % and 20 %, respectively. The mixtures were mixed with water of 77 % by weight of gypsum and molded in the size of 300 x 400 x 9 millimeter. The gypsum boards were tested for their weight, compressive strength and modulus of rupture. It was found that the resulting gypsum boards presented good performance according to TIS 219-2524, e.g., the compressive strength and modulus of rupture were 169.38 N and 3.62 MPa, respectively. The performance of gypsum boards with added dust cotton fiber did not meet the TIS standard. Therefore, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) were introduced as binders. The acceptable binder in this research was PVA. The resulting gypsum boards mixed with 10 % of dust cotton fiber and 6 % stock solution of polyvinyl alcohol gave desirable results as mentioned standard compressive strength of 135.52 N, modulus of rupture 3.12 MPa and 17 % lighter weight compared to the pure gypsum boards. As a result, dust cotton fiber should be used to apply as an added material in gypsum boards.