Physical, Mechanical, and Morphological Properties of Hybrid Cyrtostachys renda/Kenaf Fiber Reinforced with Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes (MWCNT)-Phenolic Composites.

Jesuarockiam Naveen,Ain Umaira Md Shah,Qumrul Ahsan,Mohamed Thariq Hameed Sultan,Tamil Moli Loganathan,Abd Rahim Abu Talib,Adi Azriff Basri,Mohammad Jawaid

doi:10.3390/polym13193448

Abstract

Adequate awareness of sustainable materials and eco-legislation have inspired researchers to identify alternative sustainable and green composites for synthetic fiber-reinforced polymer composites in the automotive and aircraft industries. This research focused on investigating the physical, mechanical, and morphological properties of different hybrid Cyrtostachys renda (CR)/kenaf fiber (K) (10C:0K, 7C:3K, 5C:5K, 3C:7K, 0C:10K) reinforced with 0.5 wt% MWCNT–phenolic composites. We incorporated 0.5 wt% of MWCNT into phenolic resin (powder) using a ball milling process for 25 h to achieve homogeneous distribution. The results revealed that CR fiber composites showed higher voids content (12.23%) than pure kenaf fiber composites (6.57%). CR fiber phenolic composite was more stable to the swelling tendency, resulting in the lowest percentage of swelling rate (4.11%) compared to kenaf composite (5.29%). The addition of kenaf fiber into CR composites had improved the tensile, flexural, and impact properties. The highest tensile and flexural properties were found for weight fraction of CR and kenaf fiber at 5C:5K (47.96 MPa) and 3C:7K (90.89 MPa) composites, respectively. In contrast, the highest impact properties were obtained for 0C:10K composites (9.56 kJ/m2). Based on the FE-SEM image, the CR fiber lumen was larger in comparison to kenaf fiber. The lumen of CR fiber was attributed to higher void and water absorption, lower mechanical properties compared to kenaf fiber. 5C:5K composite was selected as an optimal hybrid composite, based on the TOPSIS method. This hybrid composite can be used as an interior component (non-load-bearing structures) in the aviation and automotive sectors.

Highlights

The results showed that the 5C:5K composite obtained the relative closeness to the ideal solution, and the values were 0.603, which was selected as the best hybrid proportion between Cyrtostachys renda (CR) and kenaf fiber phenolic composite
CRfiber fibercomposites composites showed a higher amount of voids content thickness showed a higher amount of voids content and and lowerlower thickness swellingrelative relativeto to pure pure kenaf kenaf fiber fiber composites
Based on the FE‐SEM images, CR fiber lumen is larger than kenaf fiber, and kenaf fiber failure is in ductile behavior mode, while the failure of CR fiber is in brittle behavior mode

Summary

Introduction

Green composites are generated from sustainable materials that provide wider opportunities to industries, the environment and end-customers as petroleum resources are harmful to the ecosystem. In the automotive and aviation industries, the transition towards more sustainable material is an initiative for a more viable ecosystem, cost-efficiency, and demand for European legislation [1]. The proposed fibers possess unique characteristics compared to synthetic fibers, such as being renewable, sustainable, having low environmental impact, abundant availability, lightweight, low cost, low density, non-toxic, good thermal stability, environmentally-friendly, low abrasion, as well as bio-degradable. The cellulosic structure of natural fiber presents features analogous to synthetic fibers. These characteristics obstruct the ability of natural fibers to provide good reinforcement of polymeric composites

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