Application of Prosopis juliflora based bio oil in natural fibre reinforced composite laminates

Abstract

Improved life style and liberal economic policies across the globe created a vast gap between the supply and demand of energy. Further, the need for materials of required characteristic in different engineering disciplines prompt researchers to explore alternate sources both in energy sector as well as material domain. In this work, the invasive species especially Prosopis juliflora which imposes a serious threat to the environment is subjected to thermal decomposition at different temperatures based on the decomposition range to obtain various products particularly bio oil and biochar. Further, the bio oil collected during the thermal decomposition process is collected and characterized by employing Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to use it as a supplementary to fossil fuel based phenolic resin. It is observed that, the tensile and flexural properties of the coir fibre reinforced composite laminates admixed with bio oil and conventional epoxy resin exhibit a higher strength in comparison to that of the neat epoxy resin based composites.