Abstract
Cow dung possesses potential agricultural and energy value but is often regarded as waste and underutilized in most cases. This wastage of resources not only poses a challenge to agricultural sustainability but also limits economic development in rural areas. Cow dung contains natural cellulose components like cellulose and lignin that are derived and used to prepare fiber materials. This paper explores a potential value-added application of agricultural waste, i.e., cow dung fibers to reinforce the alkali-activated slag composites (AASC), which are fabricated based on an industrial by-product slag. The raw and alkali treated cow dung fibers were characterized using scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM–EDS), atomic force microscopy (AFM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), thermo-gravimetric analysis (TGA) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The porosity, density, water absorption, strength and drying shrinkage of AASC were tested and used to evaluate the effect of alkali treated fibers on the properties of AASC. The results showed that subjecting cow dung fibers to alkali treatment improved their surface roughness and thermal stability. The addition of cow dung fibers led to an augmentation in the splitting tensile strength of AASC, primarily due to the bridging action of these fibers. In particular, the 28-day splitting tensile strength of AASC containing 1 wt% of untreated cow dung fibers increased by 17.1% over the reference sample, and this increase was more pronounced in the alkali treated fiber sample. Moreover, the alkali treatment effectively reduced the effects of loss of compressive strength and increased drying shrinkage caused by fiber incorporation. The findings of this paper are helpful to solve the management problems of cow dung waste, reduce the environmental burden and realize the value utilization of resources.
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The datasets used or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Acknowledgments
This work was financially supported by Fujian Ocean and Fishery Bureau (FJHJF-L-2022-19), Fuzhou Science and Technology Bureau (2021-P-031), Natural Science Foundation of China (51978171) and Minjiang Scholar program of Fujian province, China (GXRC-19045).
Funding
This work was financially supported by Fujian Ocean and Fishery Bureau (FJHJF-L-2022–19), Fuzhou Science and Technology Bureau (2021-P-031), Natural Science Foundation of China (51978171) and Minjiang Scholar program of Fujian province, China (GXRC-19045).
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Methodology, Conceptualization, Supervision, Writing- review & editing, Funding acquisition, Z.Y.; Investigation, Testing, Data analysis, Writing-original draft, K.Li.; and X.Yan., Investigation, Validation, Supervision, W.Wu.; Validation, Supervision, B.B.; and G.C.M. All authors reviewed the manuscript.
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Yang, Z., Li, K., Yan, X. et al. Characterization and value-added applications of natural cellulose fibers derived from cow dung in cementitious composites. Cellulose (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-024-05942-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10570-024-05942-5