Impact strength and flexural properties enhancement of methacrylate silane treated oil palm mesocarp fiber reinforced biodegradable hybrid composites.

Chern Chiet Eng,Norhazlin Zainuddin,Hidayah Ariffin,Nor Azowa Ibrahim,Wan Md Zin Wan Yunus

doi:10.1155/2014/213180

Abstract

Natural fiber as reinforcement filler in polymer composites is an attractive approach due to being fully biodegradable and cheap. However, incompatibility between hydrophilic natural fiber and hydrophobic polymer matrix restricts the application. The current studies focus on the effects of incorporation of silane treated OPMF into polylactic acid (PLA)/polycaprolactone (PCL)/nanoclay/OPMF hybrid composites. The composites were prepared by melt blending technique and characterize the composites with Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). FTIR spectra indicated that peak shifting occurs when silane treated OPMF was incorporated into hybrid composites. Based on mechanical properties results, incorporation of silane treated OPMF enhances the mechanical properties of unmodified OPMF hybrid composites with the enhancement of flexural and impact strength being 17.60% and 48.43%, respectively, at 10% fiber loading. TGA thermogram shows that incorporation of silane treated OPMF did not show increment in thermal properties of hybrid composites. SEM micrographs revealed that silane treated OPMF hybrid composites show good fiber/matrix adhesion as fiber is still embedded in the matrix and no cavity is present on the surface. Water absorption test shows that addition of less hydrophilic silane treated OPMF successfully reduces the water uptake of hybrid composites.

Highlights

The oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) originates from South Africa which grows well in all tropical areas of the world and it has become one of the main industrial crops
Due to the addition of hydrophilic fiber into hydrophobic matrix will reduce the mechanical strength of composites as incompatibility issue present between fiber and matrix; objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of incorporation of methacrylate silane treated OPMF on mechanical, morphology, thermal, and water absorption properties of polylactic acid (PLA)/PCL/nanoclay/OPMF hybrid composites by melt intercalation
Silane treated OPMF composites show maximum elongation at break at 10% fiber loading with the elongation of 0.95 mm which is higher than unmodified OPMF composites (0.74 mm) and indicate that better fiber/matrix adhesion between silane treated OPMF with composites as enhance the tensile properties of composites is achieved

Summary

Introduction

The oil palm (Elaeis guineensis) originates from South Africa which grows well in all tropical areas of the world and it has become one of the main industrial crops. Due to the addition of hydrophilic fiber into hydrophobic matrix will reduce the mechanical strength of composites as incompatibility issue present between fiber and matrix; objective of this paper is to investigate the effect of incorporation of methacrylate silane treated OPMF on mechanical, morphology, thermal, and water absorption properties of PLA/PCL/nanoclay/OPMF hybrid composites by melt intercalation. Various characterization techniques such as Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were used to study the effect of incorporation of methacrylate silane treated OPMF on the properties of PLA/PCL/clay/OPMF hybrid composites

Experimental

Results and Discussion

Conclusion