Preliminary study on the sound absorption behavior of spent tea leaves filled with natural rubber latex binder

Nowadays,sound control has been regarded as one of the important requirements for human comfort. for an instance,control of room acoustic enables the room to achieve a good auditive environment for effective speech deliverance and presentations. synthetic fibers such as glass wool fiber are commonly used for sound absorption. over the years,it was discovered that synthetic fibers are expensive and possess potential hazard to environment and human health. therefore,growing attention has been turned to natural fibers as an alternative to synthetic fibers. this paper demonstrates the feasibility of spent tea leaf (stl) fiber as an eco-friendly sound absorbing material. stl fiber is a by-product which was extracted from tea plant. it is unique with fresh aroma and rich in phenolic extractive content. three different grades of stl fiber were studied and the acoustic property was analyzed in terms of sound absorption coefficient (sac). results showed that all the samples obtained maximum sac above 0.70 at frequency range of 1993-3861 hz. furthermore,it was found that finest stl fiber grade exhibits better acoustic performance among others with a maximum sac of 0.88 at 1993 hz. besides,the effect of latex binder on the acoustic property of stl fiber was also analyzed. results suggest that the types of latex binder did not influence the acoustic performance of stl fiber. the overall results indicate that stl fiber can be a promising environment-friendly sound absorbing material. © 2017 penerbit utm press. all rights reserved.