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Safety matches are
essential consumer commodity needed by all sections of the society. Wood is
the major raw material for manufacturing match sticks. However, the match
industry has been dependent on only few wood species for making match splints
and these species are now in short supply. Bamboo is a potential sustainable
raw material source for manufacturing match sticks and this acquires special
significance due also to the fact that apart from being available in natural
forests bamboos can be grown on a very short rotation of 2-4 years in many
countries in diverse climatic conditions.
However, several intrinsic
characteristics of bamboo, including poor penetration of wax required for
good incandescence and burning quality, have constrained their use for making
matchsticks. IPIRTI has evolved appropriate processes for making quality
match splints from two widely occurring species of bamboo in the Southern
India, namely Bambusa bambos and Dendrocalamus strictus, working in
collaboration with and under a project funded by International Network on
Bamboo and Rattan.
Manufacturing process developed at
IPIRTI involves treatment of bamboo splints of size 1.5mmX1.5mmX38mm with
sodium meta silicate, followed by dipping in diluted Hydrogen peroxide for
15-20 minutes. The splints are then washed in water and dipped in Boric Acid
or Boric Acid and Borax mixture fro around 5 minutes and dried. Treated
splints are then required to be dipped in molten wax at 80-1200C
for 8-12 seconds followed by heating at around 1500C for 2-3
seconds on a hot plate. For providing burning heads to the bamboo match
splints standard chemicals and processes followed in the case of wooden match
splints is adopted and the process was undertaken at an existing match
factory in Tamilnadu.
IPIRTI and INBAR have filed a
joint Indian patent at Chennai Patent
Office (MAS/627/2000 dated 07.08.2000)
Satisfactory Tests carried out at an
independent laboratory have revealed that the bamboo match sticks developed at
IPIRTI conform to relevant Indian Standard Specifications (IS:2653 –
1993 and IS: 10374 – 1982).
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