Influence of Epoxy Resin Treatment on the Mechanical and Tribological Properties of Hemp-Fiber-Reinforced Plant-Derived Polyamide 1010 Biomass Composites.

Maiko Morino,Tetsuto Kajiyama,Yosuke Nishitani

doi:10.3390/molecules26051228

Abstract

In this study, we investigated the influence of epoxy resin treatment on the mechanical and tribological properties of hemp fiber (HF)-reinforced plant-derived polyamide 1010 (PA1010) biomass composites. HFs were surface-treated using four types of surface treatment methods: (a) alkaline treatment using sodium chlorite (NaClO2) solution, (b) surface treatment using epoxy resin (EP) solution after NaClO2 alkaline treatment, (c) surface treatment using an ureidosilane coupling agent after NaClO2 alkaline treatment (NaClO2 + A-1160), and (d) surface treatment using epoxy resin solution after the (c) surface treatment (NaClO2 + A-1160 + EP). The HF/PA1010 biomass composites were extruded using a twin-screw extruder and injection-molded. Their mechanical properties, such as tensile, bending, and dynamic mechanical properties, and tribological properties were evaluated by the ring-on-plate-type sliding wear test. The strength, modulus, specific wear rate, and limiting pv value of HF/PA1010 biomass composites improved with surface treatment using epoxy resin (NaClO2 + A-1160 + EP). In particular, the bending modulus of NaClO2 + A-1160 + EP improved by 48% more than that of NaClO2, and the specific wear rate of NaClO2 + A-1160 + EP was one-third that of NaClO2. This may be attributed to the change in the internal microstructure of the composites, such as the interfacial interaction between HF and PA1010 and fiber dispersion. As a result, the mode of friction and wear mechanism of these biomass composites also changed.

Highlights

Natural-fiber-reinforced biomass polymer composites are attracting extensive interest as a solution for growing environmental threats [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]
The fibers of HF_NaClO2 + A-1160 + EP did bond with polyamide 1010 (PA1010) and fiber breakage occurred. These differences may be due to the change in the mode of friction and wear mechanism according to the type of surface treatment of hemp fiber (HF) carried out or due to improvement in mechanical properties as a result of the strong interfacial interaction between HF and PA1010 and good fiber dispersion in the composites in surface treatment using epoxy resin after pre-treatment by NaClO2 alkaline treatment and the use of an ureidosilane coupling agent
We studied the influence of epoxy resin treatment on the mechanical and tribological properties of hemp fiber (HF)-reinforced plant-derived polyamide 1010 (PA1010) biomass composites

Summary

Introduction

Natural-fiber-reinforced biomass polymer composites are attracting extensive interest as a solution for growing environmental threats [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12]. To further enhance the eco-friendliness of these biomass polymer composites, fully bio-based polymers such as polylactic acid (PLA) [17,18,19,20,21,22] and plant-derived polyamide (PA1010, PA11) [12,23,24,25] should ideally be used as the matrix polymer These biomass composites have such drawbacks as poor interfacial adhesion between natural fiber and matrix biopolymer [3,12,14,26] and may, show poor mechanical and tribological properties. There has been interest in the effects of the surface treatment of natural fiber on the tribological properties of these biomass composites [12,14,35,36,37,38,39,40,41,42,43,44]

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