Surface Modification of Flax Fibers for Manufacture of Engineering Thermoplastic Biocomposites

Madina Shamsuyeva,Boon Peng Chang,Hans-Josef Endres,Amar Mohanty,Manjusri Misra,Natalie Vellguth

doi:10.3390/jcs4020064

Abstract

The aim of this feasibility study is to develop application-oriented natural fiber-reinforced biocomposites with improved mechanical and durability performance. The biocomposites were manufactured via a film-stacking process of epoxy-coated flax textiles and polyamide 6 (PA6). The fabricated biocomposites were subjected to thermo-oxidative ageing for 250, 500 and 1000 h and tested with regard to tensile properties. The results show that the biocomposites with epoxy-coated flax fibers possess considerably higher tensile properties compared with the reference specimens under all tested conditions.

Highlights

Natural fiber composites have already proven their beneficial material properties in various lightweight applications, like e.g., automotive, sport and leisure or building construction [1,2,3]
Both thermoset and thermoplastic natural fiber composites find industrial applications, recycling possibilities of the thermoplastic composites represent a valuable advantage compared with the thermoset composites [3]
Due to the lower processing temperature of these matrices, which is generally lower than 200 ◦C, the natural fibers do not undergo thermal degradation, which is associated with emission, color change and strong decrease of mechanical performance [6]

Summary

Introduction

Natural fiber composites have already proven their beneficial material properties in various lightweight applications, like e.g., automotive (interior), sport and leisure or building construction [1,2,3]. Effective use of engineering thermoplastics like, for example, polyamide would enable manufacture of natural fiber-reinforced composites with considerably higher mechanical performance, durability and thermal resistance than those with standard thermoplastics This would open new application fields for the resulting biocomposites. PA6 and epoxy resins have good compatibility [11], i.e., epoxy resins have been used as a reactive coupler for the manufacture of PA6 blends with polycarbonate [12], polybutylene terephthalate [13,14], and poly-(phenylene ether) [15] or as crosslinking agent for the manufacture of PA6 foam [16] Both of the aforementioned studies report that the resulting biocomposites with epoxy coated natural fibers possess increased bending, tensile and thermal properties [9,10]. In order to further develop this technology, the effect of temperature on the coated textiles and ageing behavior of the manufactured biocomposites have to be investigated

Objectives

Methods

Results