Fabrication and testing of composites made of polyester fibres from waste paint brush bristles and reinforced with epoxy.

In the world around 50 tonnes of paint brushes that are thrown away which contributes to 80 million pounds of wastes per year, this has a greater impact to the environment, these brushes are dumped in landfills and other areas which may affect the plants growth, and the nutrients present in the soil, also the ground water and its level. Because of these impacts this project is aimed to recycle this paint brushes into a polymer composite where the bristles made of polyester is collected and cleaned using acetone solution and reorganized as reinforcement for the composites. The polymer composites are fabricated under three cases in the weight ratio of 50:50 where 50 % of fiber is reinforced with 50 % epoxy matrix, case i) Random orientation of the fiber ii) 90 degree fiber orientation and iii) 0 degree fiber orientation, fabricated using compression molding process and these are tested for tensile strength and flexural strength. Among the three cases random orientation and 90 degree orientation show better tensile and flexural strength compared to 0 degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]