Influence of Prosopis Juliflora wood flour in Poly Lactic Acid – Developing a novel Bio-Wood Plastic Composite

Abstract

A Bio composite comprising Prosopis Juliflora Fiber (PJF) and Poly Lactic Acid (PLA) was processed considering two particulate sized reinforcements, coarse PJF (avg. 15 µm) and fine PJF (10-50 nm). They were added individually at ratios of 10, 15, 20 and 25 wt% into PLA matrix. The composites were extruded and tested for mechanical properties. The addition of PJF resulted with an increase in the tensile, flexural and impact strengths of the polymer. Adding PJF to PLA showed a decrease in the hardness of the polymer. Water Absorption test showed an increase in water uptake with increasing fiber content. The most optimum ratio of PLA to PJF was found to be 80:20. The fine PJF reinforced composites proved to be superior over the coarse PJF reinforced composites at all stages of the research. FESEM and TGA were used to study morphology and thermal characteristics respectively.

Behavior of epoxy reinforced banana glass fiber hybrid composite with nanoclay interference

“…But the reinforcement of banana fiber showed 0.77% of water absorption, because natural fibers are prone to moisture. 33 The addition of nanoclay showed a further increase in moisture absorption as shown in Figure 8. The C5 exhibited water absorption of 1.85%, C7 is having more water absorption of 2.24% due to higher nanoclay content.…”

“…The dry weight (Wd) and the wet weight (Ww) were measured before and after the period of immersion to find the change in weight of the samples. Then the water uptake was found out in percentage using the formula: 33 where…”

Philosophy of Selecting ASTM Standards for Mechanical Characterization of Polymers and Polymer Composites

“…If a material is very soft like a polymer reinforced with plasticizers or rubber, it requires faster cross head speed movement and for brittle materials it is vice versa. The most commonly used cross head speeds that is used for testing plain polymers and polymers reinforced with synthetic or natural fibers are 5 mm/min (if the thickness is 3.2 mm) [12,13] and 10 mm/min (if the thickness of the test specimen is above 4 mm) [14]. But experiments carried out on tough materials like polyamide have used a cross head speed of upto 500 mm/min [15].…”

“…According to the ASTM D790 the span length of the fixtures on which the specimens are placed during the three point bending test must be 10% of the length of the specimen from either ends [27]. The standard overall length of the ASTM D790 specimen is 150 mm, considering which the specimen should be placed on a fixture at 15 mm from either ends [14]. The vertical load should be applied at the exact center of the specimen, which is 75 mm as represented in Figure 2.…”

“…The specimen upon removal from water, must be wiped dry on the surface and measured to determine the increase in weight due to moisture absorption. The formula used to calculate the Rate of Water Absorption by the specimen is depicted in Equation 2 [4,14]. %WA = [(Ww -Wd) / Wd] x 100 (2) where, %WA represents Percentage of Water Absorbed, Ww is the wet weight of the specimen and Wd is the dry weight of the specimen.…”