Phenolic composites are well known for their excellent resistance to corrosion, heat and combustion. Bio-based phenols or plant-derived phenol, on the other hand, has been promising renewable and environmentally friendly substitute to petroleum derived phenols. Due to some notable disadvantages of biophenol (i.e. poor design flexibility and brittleness of the materials among others), several effective attempts have made to overcome the problem by incorporating nano-sized cellulose fibre as reinforcement materials in bio-phenolic composites. The modified phenolic resins have been fabricated with nano-fibrillated cellulose (NFC) to produce biocomposites that possess superior mechanical, thermal and electrical properties. The combination of NFC from kenaf, jute, sisal, pineapple leaf fibre (PALF), flax, and hemp with phenolic matrices will produce composite materials that can compete and invade markets currently dominated by carbon and glass fibre reinforced composites especially in construction and automotive applications. Due to its abundancy and renewability, embedding NFC with phenolic polymer will solve numerous environmental problems. In fact, wide varieties of NFC based bio-phenolic composites have been innovated using various advance synthesis processes. This chapter is intended to present an overview on the attributes of NFC from various sources and its effects on the properties of bio-phenolic composites. The bio-based phenolic matrix synthesis and composite processing technique are also discussed herein.
In this research, a one step, facile route has been undertaken to synthesise copper oxide/reduced graphene oxide (CuO/rGO) nanocomposites. X-ray powder diffraction analysis (XRD) was carried out to identity the crystalline structure and phase of the synthesised sample. Elemental analysis and surface morphological features were analysed using EDX and FESEM Images. Particle size as well as the shape of the as prepared composite was observed from HR-TEM images. Raman spectra illustrated the peak of the individual composite materials. The electrochemical properties of the prepared nanocomposite were investigated. The dielectric behaviour of the sample including dielectric constant, dielectric loss and AC conductivity was measured at various frequency levels. Temperature was varied accordingly to observe the effect of temperature on the dielectric properties of the sample.
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