Sazidur Rahman Shahriar, Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering, has been designing, building, and improving machines and materials for a number of years. Currently, he is working on developing manufacturing processes for Hemp fiber reinforced biocomposites, which will be valuable for the textile and construction industries in the near future. He is focused on improving both the chemical and mechanical processes of making hemp yarn into a strong, high-performance, and sustainable material suitable for use in fashion and home décor textiles and for use as a reinforcement in biocomposites used in structural applications and construction materials. Although hemp is an eco-friendly alternative to glass fiber and synthetic plastic yarn and filaments, conventional decortication methods to separate the fiber (bast) and hurd (woody inner part) in a stalk often yield short, stiff, and damaged fibers due to the severe mechanical processing. The natural gums that bind the hurd to the fiber (pectin) and fiber bundles to each other (lignin and hemicellulose) must also be removed by chemical degumming before use in various applications. The decortication and degumming steps are significant processing hurdles that hinder hemp’s adoption as a viable engineering material.
Sazidur is redesigning and upgrading an automated mechanical decortication machine to efficiently separate the long hemp fibers from the woody core (hurd) without causing damage by a peeling process. Following decortication, an optimized alkaline degumming process will remove the natural gums, which is followed by a neutralization step to eliminate the highly alkaline waste solution before it is suitable for dumping into a municipal sewer system. Once degummed and neutralized, the fibers are processed through a carding machine, which aligns and separates them into fine, spinnable bundles called sliver. The sliver is then fed into a ring spinning machine to produce continuous hemp yarns. Additionally, as a bio-alloying approach, Sazidur is developing an automated infusion system to treat the spun hemp yarns with an aqueous solution with low concentrations of bacterially produced spider silk proteins to significantly enhance the fiber’s mechanical strength, flexibility, and durability. These infused yarns can then be used to create high quality textiles and biocomposite construction materials. Additionally, an increased market demand for hemp provides farmers with another commodity cash crop to add to their rotation.
“What excites me most about this work,” says Sazidur , “is its potential to create renewable, biodegradable materials that match or exceed the performance of synthetics – while promoting sustainable agriculture and reducing plastic waste.”
Originally from Bangladesh, Sazidur completed his B.S. in Industrial and Production Engineering at Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology. Focused on sustainable machining, he developed a Small Quantity Lubrication machine that uses a minimal amount of vegetable oil-based lubricant to reduce heat generated at the chip-tool interface during turning operations. His approach offers both performance and environmental benefits for many different types of machine operations.
Continuing his efforts to improve machine processing, Sazidur traveled to Texas to Prairie View A&M University, where as part of his M.S. in Mechanical Engineering program, he built a Laminated Object Manufacturing machine for fabricating bio-fiber reinforced composite materials. The goal was to develop sustainable alternatives to traditional synthetic composites for applications in automotive panels, building materials, sports equipment, and musical instruments. He used woven jute fibers as reinforcement and PLA biopolymer as the matrix to create Jute/PLA biocomposites, conducted mechanical property testing, and compared the results with those of pure PLA specimens fabricated through conventional 3D printing. Results demonstrated that Jute-PLA biocomposites exhibit superior mechanical properties compared to pure PLA parts, highlighting their potential as eco-friendly, high-performance materials. Sazidur was supervised by Dr. Lai Jiang, alumnus from RPI Mechanical Engineering previously advised by our own Dr. Daniel Walczyk. Very early in his M.S. program, Sazidur was inspired to pursue a Ph.D. at RPI.
Post-graduation, Sazidur is open to either academic or industrial positions where he can perform academic research for industrial applications or contribute as a manufacturing or mechanical design engineer. In his spare time, you may find Sazidur travelling, photographing his travelling experiences, or cooking for friends at home.
