DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF BIOCOMPOSITE MATERIAL AS HOUSEHOLD ROOF INSULATOR AND

SOUND ABSORBER USING SUGARCANE BAGASSE AND CORN COBS EMBEDDED WITH FIRE
ALERT SYSTEM AND TEMPERATURE MONITORING
 INTRODUCTION

Philippines is an agricultural country that produces large number of crops

including sugarcane, corn, and rice ((Bersales, 2018). With heavy reliance to agriculture

for livelihood, the Philippines has large abundant supplies of agricultural crop residues

that are unrecycled, causing land pollution. According to Zafar (2021), an estimated

1.17 million tons of sugarcane bagasse and 960 million tons of corncobs are wasted

every year in the country, which are considered as recoverable biomass resource.

On the other hand, the country is currently exposed to major problems like global

warming and noise pollution. Where the Philippines is highly vulnerable to its adverse

impacts such as reduced crop productivity, annual losses in GDP, intensity of heat

weaves causing people to spend more electricity on cooling appliances, and city noises

that contribute to stress.

To help address the problem of noise pollution and global warming worsened by

climate change, this study aimed to design and develop a bio composite material used

as household roof insulator and sound absorber with the use of biodegradable wastes

particularly the sugarcane bagasse and corncobs that are largely disposed as waste in

the locality of Valencia City Bukidnon. This project aimed to help provide solution to the

increasing demand of electricity bill by introducing a bio composite material that will

provide a natural household cooling system through the application of thermal insulation

and sound absorption properties of sugarcane bagasse and corncobs as renewable raw

materials. Aside from thermal insulation and sound absorption, the project also

embedded a fire alert system that will help prevent the rising cases of fire incidents in

the locality and a temperature monitoring system as part of the key features. With this
project, the locality will be helped in recycling agricultural wastes, reducing city noises

and lowering the monthly electricity demands by not any more using the cooling

appliances that use commercial electricity.