Weathering Behavior of Bagasse Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite

The sugar cane residue bagasse is an underutilized renewable agricultural material. Bagasse is generally grey-yellow to pale green in color. It is bulky and quite nonuniform in particle size. As it is produced at the sugar mills, bagasse is used as fuel in the power plant. However, wherever there is large scale production of sugarcane, there will be excess bagasse which must be disposed of by other methods such as burning, dumping, land burial, etc. Thus, an economic use of the excess bagasse could both increase the profits of the sugar mill and solve an environmental problem. In this work an attempt has been made to upgrade the value of this agricultural residue by bonding with resin to produce composites for suitable applications.