Comparative Study of Microwave Absorption Properties between Raw Rubber Wood Dust and Carbonized Wood Dust Lightweight Cement Brick

Due to the explosion of information technology via communication media, there is a significant need for telecommunications services, particularly in wireless communications. The increased usage of telecommunication services, however, exposes people to high levels of radio frequency radiation. The increasing radiation exposure may result in several serious problems for human health. With the use of biomass materials which are raw rubber wood dust and carbonized wood dust that can block microwave radiation, this project will create two sets of anti-microwave cement bricks by combining the common material used in lightweight cement brick with those materials. Wood dust is used in the cement composition of lightweight cement bricks because of its potential as an absorbing material since it contains carbon elements. The absorption performance of the developed anti-microwave lightweight cement bricks in the frequency range of 1 to 12 GHz was examined using the free-space arch reflectivity measurement method. With commercial cement bricks performing as benchmarks, the study will investigate the absorption capabilities of designed anti-microwave lightweight cement bricks. The result shows that lightweight cement bricks which use raw rubber wood dust and carbonized wood dust have the potential as an anti-microwave material that can reach higher absorption performances up to 24.75 dB and 13.68 dB respectively compared to commercial brick which only reaches absorption performance at 12.74 dB. By observing the detail according to the frequency band, L band, S band, C band, and X band, raw rubber wood dust lightweight cement brick gives the highest reading of absorption while lightweight cement bricks with carbonized wood dust give the greatest reading according to the minimum absorption data for each type of brick, which explained that in overall lightweight cement brick with carbonized wood dust started the absorption at a higher value compared to others.