Browsing by Author "Nanayakkara, MPA"

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    item: Conference-Abstract
    Exploring the value addition potential of the local rice straw varieties
    (Society of Materials Engineering Students, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of Moratuwa, 2017-03) Nanayakkara, MPA; Pabasara, WGA; Samarasekara, AMPB; Amarasinghe, DAS; Sivahar, V
    Polymers play a critical role in engineering applications today. Cellulose is the most abundant renewable natural biopolymer on earth. It is present in a wide variety of living species including plants and some marine animals. Rice is the main food of the inhabitants of Sri Lanka. The total land devoted for paddy is estimated to be about 708,000 hectares at present in Sri Lanka. Rice straw is a rice by-product produced after harvesting paddy. Rice straw is a major agricultural waste product in Sri Lanka. There is no effective value addition to local rice straw today. Rice straw contains considerable amount of cellulose with hemicelluloses and lignin. This research is based on investigating the possibility of extraction of cellulose from most frequently used traditional rice varieties (Suwandel and Raththal) and technically modified rice varieties (BG300 and BG352) in Sri Lanka. The dried and cleaned rice straw was milled using a grinder to produce fine powder of rice straw. Sieve analysis method was used to analyze the rice straw powder and equal or less than 150 ? m particle size was selected for the cellulose extraction. Pure cellulose was extracted from BG 352 rice straw variety after following de-waxing, deligni? cation, hemicellulose and silica removal processes. Same extraction procedure was followed for BG 300, Suwandel and Raththal rice varieties. The complete removal of non-cellulosic materials from rice straw was confirmed by FTIR spectroscopy after each chemical purification step. According to the experimental results, highest cellulose yield was obtained from rice straw of Suwandel (35.2%). Other types of rice varieties showed cellulose yield of BG300 (27.8%), BG352 (29.3%) and Rathhal (26.8%). Key feature of this research is developing new processes and technologies to convert Sri Lankan agricultural waste into value - added product of cellulose. These extracted cellulose material can be used for different engineering applications.
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    item: Conference-Full-text
    Novel thermogravimetry based analytical method for cellulose yield prediction of Sri Lankan rice straw varieties
    (IEEE, 2018-05) Samarasekara, AMPB; Nanayakkara, MPA; Pabasara, WGA; Amarasinghe, DAS; Karunanayake, L; Chathuranga, D
    Rice straw is the largest residue of Sri Lankan paddy cultivation which has not yet subjected to an effective value addition. But, rice straw can be converted to a high value product as it contains significant amount of Cellulose. Therefore, it is beneficial in many aspects to identify rice straw varieties which provide a sufficient cellulose yield. This research work focuses on introducing a novel, easy to use method based on Thermogravimetric Analysis to predict cellulose yield from most abundant traditional (Suwandel, Raththal) and technically modified (BG300, BG352) rice straw varieties in Sri Lanka. The above method was validated by comparing the results with the yields from established three-step wet chemical method. Proposed method showed a high level of accuracy as percentage variations were less than 5% for all four varieties. Highest cellulose yield was obtained from the rice straws of Suwandel variety. This study reveals a potentially effective course of value addition for Sri Lankan agricultural waste.
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    item: Conference-Abstract
    Synthesis and characterization of cellulose from locally available rice straw
    (2017) Nanayakkara, MPA; Pabasara, WGA; Samarasekara, AMPB; Amarasinghe, DAS; Karunanayake, L
    Rice is the main agricultural food in Sri Lanka today. Paddy crops are cultivated as a wetland crop in all the districts. Rice straw is a waste product of the rice harvest that is generated in equal or greater quantities than the rice itself.Despite these larger quantities, rice straw is frequently burned in open air by farmers which makes it a significant source of pollution. In the search for possible uses of rice straw, it was found that rice straw contains considerable amount of cellulose which pave the way for the production of cellulose. This study mainly focuses on the synthesis and characterization of cellulose from rice straws of most frequently used traditional (Suwandel, Raththal) and technically modified (BG300, BG352) rice varieties in Sri Lanka. Up to date, pure cellulose has been separately isolated from rice straws of above mentioned four rice varieties after following a three-step de-waxing, delignification and hemicellulose (and silica) removal process. The formation of pure cellulose and complete removal of non-cellulosic materials from rice straw was confirmed by FTIR spectroscopy after each chemical purification step. Highest cellulose yield was observed from rice straws of Suwandel variety (35.2%). Other rice varieties showed cellulose yield BG352 (29.3%), BG300 (27.9%) and Raththal (25.1%).