Utilization of Green Mussels (Perna viridis) Shell Powder's Fire Retardant Property as an Additive for Water-Based Paint

• Main Authors: Arellano, Michael Angelo E., Orquia, Justine Kate T., Rosales, Samantha Reigne O., Yu, Jenelle Chynna B.
• Format: text
• Published: Animo Repository 2022
• Subjects: calcium carbonate; fire; fire-retardant; mussels; seashells
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/conf_shsrescon/2022/paper_men/1; https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&context=conf_shsrescon
• Institution: De La Salle University

Huge production of green mussels (Perna viridis) has been contributing excessive waste to the environment. Despite several researches on the mechanical properties of mussel shells being employed to improve thermal properties of flame retardants due to its calcium carbonate composition, there are limited studies utilizing these shells as a flame-retardant additive for construction purposes, in this case, for paint. This study aimed to determine whether green mussel shell powder can be used as an additive for water-based paint to enhance its fire retardancy. This study devised an experimental design based on Taguchi Orthogonal Array with four three-level factors to find the effect of varying multiple factors (amount of coating, additive concentration, burning time during additive preparation, and particle size) on the weight loss of plywood sheets coated with modified paint subject to fire exposure. Weight loss of material is the indicator of fire retardancy of the coating. It was discovered that among all experimental set-ups, for the green mussel shell powder additive to give maximum protection, three coatings of paint should be applied, having about 7.5% concentration of the powder that was baked for 2 hours before pulverization with a particle size that ranges from 150-250 microns. This combination of parameters yields an average weight loss of 0.41641%: the minimum average among all runs. Verification runs confirmed that this combination of parameters yields optimum fire-retardancy. In summary, the mussel shell powder additive yielded greater flame retardation compared to the baseline and has the potential to be fire retardant.