Composite holds great promise for future materials considering its advantages such as excellent strength, stiffness, lightweight, and cost-effectiveness. Due to rising environmental concerns, the research speed gradually changes from synthetic polymer composites to natural fibre reinforced polymer composites (NFRPCs). Natural fibres are believed a valuable and robust replacement to synthetic silicates and carbon-based fibres, along with biodegradability, recyclability, low cost, and eco-friendliness. But the incompatibility between natural fibre and polymer matrices and higher moisture absorption percentage of natural fibre limitise their applications. To overcome these flaws, surface treatment of natural fibre and nanofiller addition have become some of the most important aspects to improve the performance of NFRPCs. This review article provides the most recent development on the effect of different nanofiller addition and surface treatment on the mechanical, thermal, and wetting behaviour of NFRPCs. It concludes that the fibre surface treatment and nanofillers in natural fibre polymer composites positively affect mechanical, thermal and water absorption properties. A systematic understanding in this field covers advanced research basics to stimulate investigation for fabricating NFRPCs with excellent performance.
Natural fibre-based materials are gaining popularity in the composites industry, particularly for automotive structural and semi-structural applications, considering the growing interest and awareness towards sustainable product design. Surface treatment and nanofiller addition have become one of the most important aspects of improving natural fibre reinforced polymer composite performance. The novelty of this work is to examine the combined effect of fibre surface treatment with Alumina (Al2O3) and Magnesia (MgO) nanofillers on the mechanical (tensile, flexural, and impact) behaviour of biotex flax/PLA fibre reinforced epoxy hybrid nanocomposites. Al2O3 and MgO with a particle size of 50 nm were added in various weight proportions to the epoxy and flax/PLA fibre, and the composite laminates were formed using the vacuum bagging technique. The surface treatment of one set of fibres with a 5% NaOH solution was investigated for its effect on mechanical performance. The results indicate that the surface-treated reinforcement showed superior tensile, flexural, and impact properties compared to the untreated reinforcement. The addition of 3 wt. % nanofiller resulted in the best mechanical properties. SEM morphological images demonstrate various defects, including interfacial behaviour, fibre breakage, fibre pullout, voids, cracks, and agglomeration.
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