No abstract

No abstract

Areca fibers have a great prospect in the polymer composite field since they possess superior properties like being light weight, strong and having high strength-to-weight ratio. In addition, areca fibers are biodegradable, non-toxic and eco-friendly and have low maintenance cost. In this research work, areca fibers were subjected to chemical treatments such as NaOH, KMnO4, C6H5COCl and H2C=CHCOOH to reduce the hydrophilic nature of areca fibers and to improve interfacial adhesion between areca fibers and thermoplastic polypropylene matrix, so that areca-polypropylene composites with improved properties can be obtained. The untreated and all chemically treated areca-polypropylene composites with 30%, 40%, 50%, 60% and 70% fiber loadings were fabricated by the compression molding technique. Investigations of tensile, flexural and impact properties of areca fiber reinforced polypropylene composites were done under given fiber loadings by following American Standard for Testing Materials (ASTM) standard procedures. Amongst all untreated and chemically treated areca-polypropylene composites, acrylated areca-polypropylene composites with 60% fiber loading showed higher tensile and flexural strength values and with 50% fiber loading showed higher impact strength values. Hence, chemically treated areca-polypropylene composites can be considered as a very promising material for the fabrication of lightweight material industries.

No abstract

No abstract

Environmentally valuable composites would be made by replacing synthetic fibers with various types of natural cellulose fibers. The most significant factor in finding good fiber reinforcement in the composite is the strength of the bond between matrix polymer and fiber. Due to the presence of hydroxide and other polar groups in various constituents of natural fiber, the moisture absorption is high which leads to poor wettability and weak interfacial bonding between fibers and the more hydrophobic matrices. Therefore, it is necessary to impart hydrophobic nature to the natural fibers by suitable chemical treatments in order to develop composites with better mechanical properties. In the present work, the effect of esterification on moisture absorption of single abaca fiber has been investigated. It was observed that the esterification process drastically reduced the moisture uptake of fibers. Acrylic acid treated abaca fiber showed about 32.87, 32.53, 50.76 and 39.01% lower moisture absorption than untreated fiber in pond water, river water, borewell water and sea water respectively.

No abstract

No abstract