Abstract
In this paper, superheated steam (SHS) was used as cost effective and green processing technique to modify oil palm mesocarp fiber (OPMF) for biocomposite applications. The purpose of this modification was to promote the adhesion between fiber and thermoplastic. The modification was carried out in a SHS oven at various temperature (200–230 °C) and time (30–120 min) under normal atmospheric pressure. The biocomposites from SHS-treated OPMFs and poly(butylene succinate) (PBS) at a weight ratio of 70:30 were prepared by melt blending technique. The mechanical properties and dimensional stability of the biocomposites were evaluated. This study showed that the SHS treatment increased the roughness of the fiber surface due to the removal of surface impurities and hemicellulose. The tensile, flexural and impact properties, as well as dimensional stability of the biocomposites were markedly enhanced by the presence of SHS-treated OPMF. Scanning electron microscopy analysis showed improvement of interfacial adhesion between PBS and SHS-treated OPMF. This work demonstrated that SHS could be used as an eco-friendly and sustainable processing method for modification of OPMF in biocomposite fabrication.
Highlights
Natural fibers as filler in biocomposites have received substantial interest from researchers because they have many significant advantages over synthetic fibers
The absorbance of these peaks on the SHSOPMF spectrum was drastically reduced as compared to that of the oil palm mesocarp fiber (OPMF) spectrum. This indicates that superheated steam (SHS) treatment removed hemicellulose and lignin partially
SHS was successfully employed to modify the surface of OPMF
Summary
Natural fibers as filler in biocomposites have received substantial interest from researchers because they have many significant advantages over synthetic fibers. These biocomposites exhibited low tensile, flexural and impact properties resulting from the poor interfacial adhesion between hydrophilic OPMF and hydrophobic PBS This problem can be overcome via several approaches such as introducing a compatibilizer or coupling agent into the biocomposite [5,8,10,14,28,29], and modifying the fiber surface properties via NaOH treatment [6,7,8,12,15,18], chemical grafting [20] or bleaching [16]. SHS is dry steam produced by boiling wet steam with additional heat at a given pressure [30] It is a simple, cheap and eco-friendly technique for surface modification of fiber as water is the only reactant used in the process. The effect of SHS-treated OPMFs on the mechanical properties and dimensional stability of OPMF/PBS biocomposite was reported
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