The Interfacial and Mechanical Properties of Plant Leaf Fibers Combined with Agar Composites

Abstract

ABSTRACT In order to investigate the feasibility of developing a new material to substitute disposable plastics to reduce environmental pollution, four kinds of plant leaf fibers (lotus leaf, reed leaf, bamboo leaf and ginkgo leaf) were selected to combined with agar to prepare fully degradable composites (referred as LAC, RAC, BAC and GAC, respectively). The chemical composition, functional groups and thermal properties of plant leaf fibers were analyzed. The morphology of the tensile cross section of the composites was observed, and the mechanical properties, moisture absorption profile and thermal conductivity of the composites were studied. The cellulose content in the plant leaf fibers was relatively high, among which the reed leaf fiber had the highest one, which was 27.75%. The thermal stability of lotus, reed and ginkgo leaf fiber was close, while that of bamboo leaf fiber was poor. Among the four kinds of plant leaf fiber composites, reed leaf fiber/agar composite has the best mechanical properties, and its tensile, flexural and impact strength were 1.81 MPa, 6.59 MPa and 5.09 kJ/m2, respectively. The BAC had a poor internal combination with many internal defects leading to its poor mechanical properties.