Eco-friendly alternatives to printed circuit boards: developing natural fiber polymer composites with optimized flammability and moisture resistance

Abstract

Worldwide, E-waste is collected large in quantities from electronics and computer components these items are highly harmful to humans and the environment. Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) are one of the E-waste that has to be received from all electronic items such as hard disks, motherboards and electronic circuitry boards. PCBs are generally made by using E-Glass fibers and mounting of capacitors, diodes etc., these are created harmful to environmental surroundings at the influence of waste conditions. This study makes an effort to defeat the environmental pollutions caused by E-waste (PCBs). In this work replacing E-glass fibers is used in the PCBs with natural fibers, prepared by polymer matrix composites. Natural fibers such as banana fiber and rice husk are blended in equal volume ratio with epoxy resin for making effective composites. Minimum weight loss can be obtained with the optimal parameters of 16 mm of flame gap and 45 mm of flame travel for 15 s. The minimum moisture absorption was observed for the composites fabricated with 60 wt% of fiber, 12 MPa of compaction pressure for 36 h of immersion. The necessary properties of the composites such as flammability and moisture absorption are analyzed with the influence of different parameters with the use of the Taguchi optimization route. The Flame gap parameter is highly influenced by the weight loss in the flammability test, further, the compaction pressure is a major effecting parameter for weight decided in the moisture absorption test.