Acoustic Performance of Green Polymer Foam from Renewable Resources after UV Exposure

Abstract

Flexible and rigid green polymers foam were prepared by the reaction of polyol based on waste vegetable oil with commercial Polymethane Polyphenyl Isocyanate (Modified Polymeric-MDI) and Diisocyanate-diphenylmethane. The effect of the Ultraviolet on flexible and rigid green polymer foam was examined by Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and acoustic study of sound absorption coefficient. The morphology structure of rigid green polymer foam gives a close cell structure and smallest cell size with UV exposure compared with flexible green polymer foam, which gives open cell structure and largest cell size after UV exposure.The α of flexible green polymer foam gives better compared with the α of rigid green foam at low frequency level before UV exposure. The noise reduction coefficient (NRC) of flexible green polymer foam is higher, 0.2339, compared with rigid green foam which is 0.1407. The NRC of flexible green polymer foam drops to 24.41 % with exposure up to 240 hours on UV light. The UV light was influenced by the sound absorption level with lower frequency, hence less ductile characteristic of the flexible and rigid green polymer foam.