Shamala Ramasamy

• B.Eng (Hons) Materials Eng, MSc in Polymer Eng, Ph.D in Materials Engineering
• Senior Lecturer at University of Malaysia, Perlis

Ramasamy et al. (2013). "Rice husk in rubber foam," BioResources 8(3), 4258-4269. b Rice husk constitutes the largest by-product of the rice milling industry. Numerous research studies have been conducted on the utilization of rice husk powder (RHP), but research on incorporating RHP into natural rubber latex foam (NRLF) is lacking. The purpose of...

Rice husk powder (RHP) is an agricultural by-product, and this research is carried out to incorporate RHP with natural rubber latex (NRL) compound and is foamed to make natural rubber latex foam (NRLF) using the Dunlop method. The tensile properties of modified NRLF is studied and compared with the controlled NRLF (zero RHP loading). The morphology...

The focus of this research work was to study the possibilities of enhancing the biodegradation process of natural rubber latex foam (NRLF) by incorporating rice husk powder (RHP). Different loadings of RHP (2.5, 5.0, 7.5, and 10 phr) were used in this study. Controlled and RHP-incorporated NRLF samples were subjected to natural soil environment for...

This study investigates a novel idea of adding rice husk powder (RHP) into natural rubber latex foam (NRLF) as a way of creating an end product with improved characteristics, marketability, and disposal opportunities. Many sectors have attempted the recycling of RHP, but never with NRLF. This study intends to examine how the mechanical and physical...

This study summarised the recent achievement in developing fiber reinforced geopolymer concrete. The factor of replacing Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) which is due to the emission of carbon dioxide that pollutes the environment globally is well discussed. The introduction towards metakaolin is presented. Besides, the current research trend involve...

The ordinary Portland cement (OPC) is the function as a binder for grout material. However, a massive used of OPC had caused pollution to the environment. Thus, the earlier research proposed the environmental friendly binder known as geopolymer. This new binder needs to be mixed between alkaline liquids and materials rich in silica and alumina. In...

The catalytic pyrolysis of biomass in fixed bed reactor using calcium-based catalysts had been studied in fixed bed reactor. The objective of this study was to determine the influence of parameters on pyrolysis product and to determine the potential of calcium-based catalysts in pyrolysis of palm shell. The results were obtained with various temper...

In this study, pyrolysis of sawdust was investigated using a fixed bed reactor. The objectives of this project were to study the effect of pyrolysis parameters on production of bio-oil and bio-char and to analyze the characteristics of pyrolysis product. The variations of pyrolysis temperature are 450, 500, 550, 600 and 650 °C. The particle size wa...

The catalytic pyrolysis of agricultural waste by waste eggs shell had been studied in the fixed bed reactor. The objectives of this study were to investigate the potential use of waste eggs shell as catalyst in pyrolysis process and to determine the effect of pyrolysis product with various pyrolysis parameters which are temperature, heating rate an...

Undeniable need of an alternative material for Ordinary Portland Cement has led to major focus of geopolymer source materials. Production of one ton of cement emits 0.87 ton of carbon dioxide (CO2), The use of new sources materials such as fly ash a have potential as geopolymer bricks plus can reduce the emission of carbon dioxide by ordinary Portl...

The focus of current research work is to investigate the water to solids interaction and characteristic of geopolymer grout material. Previous researchers proposed fly ash as an environmentally friendly binder material known as geopolymer. This new binder needs to be mixed between alkaline liquids and materials rich in silica and alumina. Fly ash c...

Rice husk and polystyrene waste were combined to obtain bio-oil through pyrolysis process. The bio-oil produced from mixtures of rice husk and polystyrene waste also potential to be used as fuel. The parameters were used for this study are ratios of mixture, temperature, particle sizes and holding time. High yield of bio-oil was obtained on a rice...

Geopolymer, an inorganic compound exhibit a wide variety of desirable properties especially in the field of construction. The use of new geopolymer sources materials such as fly ash and rice hush ash have potential as geopolymer bricks to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide caused by ordinary Portland bricks that also indirectly contributes to gl...

Pyrolysis of coconut shell was investigated in a fixed-bed reactor to determine the effects of pyrolysis parameters (temperature and heating rate). The effect of zeolite and dolomite catalyst on the product yields and the qualities of the liquid product was investigated. The result showed that the optimal conditions for liquid (bio-oil) yield (48.0...

Geopolymer concrete is an innovative construction material that utilized fly ash as one of waste material in coal combustion industry as a replacement for ordinary Portland cement in concrete. However, the plain geopolymer concrete suffers from numerous drawbacks such as brittleness and low durability. This research purpose to increase the brittlen...

Nowadays, the improvement of construction materials towards sustainable construction materials had become important. Due to the hot and sunny climate in Malaysia, the consumption on electricity increases. This causes a decrease of comfort in residence. The objectives of this research was to evaluate the thermal properties of concrete containing mic...

Concrete is widely used in the engineering field, particularly in construction. Despite its widespread use in the construction industry, concrete is brittle and has a number of drawbacks, including low tension and crack resistance. As a result, many researchers discovered a way to enhance concrete ductility through adding micro steel fibers (MSF) a...

Concrete has been used for a very long period in construction sites all over the globe. Concrete is very crucial in producing structural members in any building structure. It has to be strong enough to bear the loads of building so that it will not be failed. This article focused on a critical review of concrete containing micro steel fibres (MSF)...

The development of compressive and flexural strength versus aging time for steel fiber reinforced geopolymer concrete (SFRGC) cured at ambient temperature was studied. SFRGC is produced by mixing of Malaysian fly ash, alkali activator, aggragates, and hooked steel fibers. At the first stage, the addition of steel fibers in geopolymer concrete are b...

High-performance concrete (HPC) applies to cement-based material with a strong capacity above 50MPa, has great ductility, and shows excellent performance. This paper reviews the properties of HPC, raw material, and cracking propagation. Reduction in porosity and improvement in microstructure increases the toughness of HPC. Natural materials such as...

The main objective of this study was to produce and characterize green material for heat protection based on metakaolin geopolymer–MgO nanoparticles. Metakaolin geopolymer was produced through alkali activation method and acted as a binder or matrix to MgO NPs which was prepared via hydroxide precipitation followed by thermal decomposition of the h...

This study investigates the effect of various geopolymer ceramic particles addition in matrix SnCu solder paste on its geopolymer ceramic’s microstructure and their mechanical properties after being reinforced in solder alloy. The composite solder was prepared by mechanically mixed 1.0 wt.% geopolymer ceramic powder into SnCu powder and compacted v...

Reducing the emission of CO2 into the atmosphere is a challenge due to rapid industrial development, particularly in developing countries. Ordinary Portland cement (OPC) is the second-most-consumed material just after water. It is estimated that the production of one ton OPC generates ≈0.87 ton CO2. Geopolymers are considered as the sustainable mat...

Geopolymer system which has high demand, especially among carbon conscious end users resulted in various research works on suitable mix designs of geopolymeric materials. There are certain factors that influence the properties of geopolymers such as composition, type and relative amount of alkali activator, NaOH concentration, specific surface comp...

Geopolymer is an uprising technology that is being studied worldwide. Geopolymer raw materials are basically aluminosilicate source materials. However, this technology is yet to infiltrate into pipelines and coating industries which initiated our research idea. The idea of creating universal geopolymer based coating material is mainly to help oil a...

Geopolymer is an incredible alternative green cementitious material which has ceramic-like properties, but does not require calcining that leads to reduction in processing energy usage. The purpose of this research is to study the correlation between kaolin: liquid ratio with the performance of kaolin geopolymer. Kaolin, a prominent raw geopolymer...

Kaolin, a geopolymer raw material that is rich with aluminosilicate materials is mixed with alkaline activator solution to produce geopolymer based coating material. Geopolymer technology is stil under studied in terms of coating applications especially using kaolin as raw material. Till date, there are no similar work as our effort in this researc...

Kaolin, an abundantly available material that mainly contains alumina and silica is now being used in geopolymer system. Kaolin based geopolymer has been proven to acquire remarkable thermal resistance, chemical resistance, and mechanical properties. Geopolymer materials have become the new favorite, especially for the carbon conscious end users as...

Properties of geopolymer coating on nonmetallic substrates, especially glass fiber-reinforced epoxy (GRE) have been considered based on the effect of Si/Al ratio and surface treatment at a determined proportion of solid to liquid (S/L) and curing temperature.Kaolin and white clay have been used as geopolymer raw material in study of adhesive streng...

Kaolin, widely used aluminosilicate source material was added with alkaline activator solution, creating geopolymer coating paste.Optimum design for kaolin based coating using geopolymer technology was studied. The work was to analyses the effect of solid liquid ratio, sodium silicate and sodium chloride ratio and sodium chloride molarity on its ad...

Geopolymer coatings were coated on glass fibre-reinforced epoxy (GRE) pipe by using kaolin, white clay and silica sand as source materials and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sodium silicate (Na2SiO3) as alkaline solution. The microstructure and mechanical property of geopolymer coating on GRE pipe were methodically investigated through morphology anal...

Kaolin, an aluminosilicate source materials was mixed with alkaline activator solution to create a geopolmer paste which was coated on teak wood subsrates. In this work, the effect of solid/liquid ratio (0.4, 0.6, 0.8 and 1.0) was analysed while other parameters were maintained constant. Coating teak wood substrates via geopolymer technology was fo...

Eggshell (ES) waste is available in a huge quantity and has been listed worldwide as one of the worst environmental problems. This study aimed to use, for the first time, ES powder (ESP) as filler in natural rubber latex foam (NRLF). Tensile strength of NRLF incorporated with ESP initially drops at low ESP filler loading and then increases with the...

Geopolymerisation also known as alkali activation of aluminosilicate occurs when mineral sources with high Al and Si content such as kaolin, blast furnace slag or fly ash are exposed to high alkaline environments, thus producing two to three dimensional Si-O-Al structure which exhibits both zeolitic and ceramic properties which is not typically pre...

Rice husk powder (RHP) which is a fibrous agricultural waste is widely used as potential filler, novel adsorbent or coating for dry polymers. However, the compatibility of RHP with natural rubber latex (NRL) is yet to be studied. The main goal of this reported work was to create a method to incorporate RHP with NRL and achieve a compatible dispersi...

Rice husk powder (RHP) is an abundant agricultural by product that is produced in bulk quantity as part of rice milling. This research is carried out to incorporate RHP with natural rubber latex (NRL) compound. Different loading of RHP is added to NRL compound and is foamed to make natural rubber latex foam (NRLF) using a well known technique calle...

Rice husk is an agricultural waste material abundantly available in rice-producing countries. Demanding interest on rice husk powder (RHP) as an energy resource, coating material, adsorbent and filler is obvious by the increasing research works. However, no attempts have been made so far to incorporate RHP as filler for natural rubber latex foam (N...

Rice husk, as an agricultural residue, constitutes the largest and most useless by-product of rice milling industry. Numerous researches have been done to use rice husk powder (RHP) as potential adsorbent, filler, coating material or as an energy resource. Even so, to best of our knowledge, no effort has been taken to incorporate RHP into natural r...