In recent years, natural fibers have received much attention from various industrial applications. As these fibers are lightweight, nonabrasive, low cost, ecofriendly and biodegradable, they can be sometimes considered as alternatives to synthetic fibers in lightweight composite structures. In this work, date palm fibers (DPFs) were treated by oxygen plasma at various plasma discharge power and exposure time. The effects of plasma treatment on tensile strength of DPF and interfacial adhesion between DPF and epoxy were determined by single fiber tensile test and microbond test, respectively. Scanning electron microscopy was used to investigate the surface morphologies of DPFs before and after the plasma treatment. The functional groups on the surface were studied by attenuated total reflectance-Fourier transform infrared spectroscope (ATR-FTIR). Decrease in hemicellulose and lignin content of DPF was indicated in ATR-FTIR spectra of the treated sample with plasma treatment. The results show that plasma treatment cleans the fiber surface and increases the surface roughness by etching effect. Moreover, fiber surface modification significantly improves tensile properties of DPFs and interfacial shear stress (IFSS) of fiber/matrix. However, the effects of plasma power and exposure time on tensile properties and IFSS values of DPFs are not found significant. Moreover, Weibull statistics show that plasma treatment could not decrease the variability in fiber strength due to the nature of fibers.
Ionic liquids (ILs) with their special characteristics such as low melting point, high thermal stability, electrical conductivity, and good solubility in different chemical liquids, are widely used as new solvents for a large range of inorganic, organic, and polymeric materials. The development of ILs created a great untapped potential for commercial and academic applications to increase operating efficiencies of many chemical processes, including the processing of textiles. A summarizing introduction about ILs, their characterization, the general applications, and the major challenges is presented, followed by previous researches on using ILs for textile fiber formation and modification of their properties.
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