Development of transparent composites using wheat straw fibers for light-transmitting building applications

The use of straw to prepare bio-based composite materials is of great significance to achieve sustainable development. Since the efficient utilization of wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) straw is facing severe challenges and needs to be addressed, wheat straw fibers (WSF) were used to make value-added transparent composites for light-transmitting building applications in this study. The transparent composites using wheat straw (TCWS) were successfully prepared by impregnating pre-polymerized methyl methacrylate (MMA) to WSF. The microscopic morphology analysis showed that WSF had a good binding performance with polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA), so the bio-based composites had high light transmittance and mechanical properties. The TCWS with a thickness of 3 mm and 30 wt% WSF had the light transmittance of 74.63 %, haze of 54.87 %, tensile strength of 58.19 MPa and impact strength of 4.26 kJ/m2. Thermal property test of TCWS showed that the heat conductivity of TCWS was 0.07 Wm−1k−1, displaying excellent thermal insulation performance. TCWS also exhibited excellent thermal dimensional stability and UV resistance. Therefore, TCWS has potential application prospects in the field of transparent buildings. The novelties of this study are to convert the low-cost agriculture residues into high-valued transparent composites with improved thermal insulation properties for light-transmitting building applications, compared with wood fiber transparent composites.