Eco-friendly asbestos free brake-pad: Using banana peels

The use of asbestos fiber is being avoided due to its carcinogenic nature that might cause health risks. A new brake pad was produced using banana peels waste to replaced asbestos and Phenolic resin (phenol formaldehyde), as a binder was investigated. The resin was varying from 5 to 30 wt% with interval of 5 wt%. Morphology, physical, mechanical and wear properties of the brake pad were studied. The results shown that compressive strength, hardness and specific gravity of the produced samples were seen to be increasing with increased in wt% resin addition, while the oil soak, water soak, wear rate and percentage charred decreased as wt% resin increased. The samples, containing 25 wt% in uncarbonized banana peels (BUNCp) and 30 wt% carbonized (BCp) gave the better properties in all. The result of this research indicates that banana peels particles can be effectively used as a replacement for asbestos in brake pad manufacture.