Preparation and Mechanical Properties of Cotton Stalk Bast Fibers Reinforced Polypropylene Composites

Abstract

The cotton stalk bast fibers are a new kind of natural cellulose fibers, which have the similar properties as the flax fibers. Polypropylene (PP) is a type of matrix material and commonly used in composites. The cotton stalk bast fibers as reinforced materials and PP as matrix were used to make a new kind of composite in the experiment. The composites were prepared by mixing, molding and cold forming. Orthogonal experiment table including mass fraction of fibers, molding temperature, molding pressure and molding time was devised. Then the flexural strength, tensile strength and impact strength were tested and the analysis of range was done. The optimal processing condition was obtained as follows: mass fraction of fibers was 30%, molding temperature was 190°C, molding pressure was 12MPa and molding time was 480s. The result showed that the cotton stalk bast fibers reinforced PP composites had good mechanical properties.