Eco-friendly treatment and coating for improving the performance of sisal composites

Abstract

This is the first investigation aimed to enhance the mechanical, thermal and viscoelastic properties of epoxy based sisal composites using eco-friendly treatment (i.e. NaHCO3 treatment) followed by eco-friendly polymer coating (i.e. PLA coating). The composites were fabricated by manual method with a constant content and length of fibres as 16 wt% and 15 mm, respectively. Mechanical tests on the prepared samples were performed in terms of tensile, flexural, impact and hardness. The thermal stability of the prepared composites was also measured by TGA analysis, whereas viscoelastic properties were measured by dynamic mechanical analysis. Moreover, morphological analysis of tested samples was also carried out by SEM. Tensile and flexural performances of treated and coated composites were found to be greater than those of untreated and treated sisal composites, whereas impact strength was found to be reduced. The treated and coated composite SC(T2) has 34.80% and 27.46% more values of tensile strength, and has 19.69% and 8.54% more values of tensile modulus as compared to those of untreated composite SC and treated composite SC(T1), respectively. There was a nominal improvement of 6.76% and 1.33% in the hardness of composite SC(T2) than those of composites SC and SC(T1), respectively. Thermal stability, storage modulus and glass transition temperature were also considerably improved owing to treatment followed by coating of the fibres.