biomass from paddy waste fibers as sustainable acoustic material

Utilization of biomass for green products is still progressing in the effort to provide alternative clean technology. This paper presents the utilization of natural waste fibers from paddy as acoustic material. Samples of sound absorbing material from paddy waste fibers were fabricated. The effect of the fiber density, that is, the fiber weight and the sample thickness, and also the air gap on the sound absorption coefficient is investigated through experiment. The paddy fibers are found to have good acoustic performance with normal incidence absorption coefficient greater than 0.5 from 1 kHz and can reach the average value of 0.8 above 2.5 kHz. This result is comparable against that of the commercial synthetic glass wool. Attachment of a single layer of polyester fabric is shown to further increase the absorption coefficient.