Development and Characterization of a Composite Material Based on the Mixture of Gypsum Plaster and Rice Husk Ash

The disposal of rice husk in landfills and open fields can be problematic and could affect the environment and human health due to its low bulk density. As such, this work concentrates on the usage of rice husk ash for the development and characterization of gypsum plaster and rice husk ash mixture as composite materials. The composite materials were categorized at 10 %, 20 %, 30 %, 40 % and 50 % weight of rice husk ash (RHA) fillers and the gypsum plaster or plaster of Paris (POP) was cast neat at 0 % RHA, which served as the control. Mechanical and thermal properties: tensile strength, compressive strength, flexural strength, Young’s modulus and percentage elongation at fracture of the composites were experimentally determined using the Tokyo universal testing machine. The microstructures of the composites were studied with Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDX). It was deduced from the analysis that the developed epoxy-rice husk ash composite will be suitable for engineering and building applications that could be subjected to compression and thermal effects