Effect of Chemical Treatments on the Physical Properties of Non-woven Jute/PLA Biocomposites

Abstract

Biocomposites based on poly(L-lactic acid) (PLA) and non-woven jute fabrics (NWJF) were fabricated by sandwiching non-woven jute mat between PLA sheets. First, composites were fabricated with various weight proportions of jute fabric (5, 10, 20, and 30 wt.%) with the PLA matrix, and the effect of fabric loading on their mechanical properties was investigated. Higher mechanical properties were found at 10 wt.% fabricloaded composite. The results show that the tensile, flexural, and impact strengths were increased by 61.7, 52.3, and 47.2%, respectively, as compared with neat PLA. In the second part, the jute fabrics were chemically treated with NaOH, NaClO2, acrylonitrile, acetic anhydride, KMnO4, diphenylmethane diisocyanate, and benzoyl chloride. The effect of chemical treatment on the mechanical and water absorption properties of NWJF/PLA biocomposites was studied. The mechanical properties of these biocomposites were found to be higher than those of untreated biocomposites. Among all the treatments, the combined alkalibenzoylated-treated fabric composite showed higher mechanical properties. The water absorption properties of these composites were found to be remarkably lower than those of untreated fibers. The interfacial adhesion between the fiber and the matrix was shown to increase with surface modification as revealed by SEM analysis.

Effect of Chemical Treatments and Coupling Agents on the Properties of Unidirectional Jute Fiber Reinforced Polypropylene Composite

“…The use of silane coupling agents, grafing by bifunctional monomers and the plasma treatment of the fiber surfaces are the most common techniques of interface modification of composites (Pothan et al 2002;Khan et al 2009;Khan et al 2013a;El-Sabbagh 2014;Khan et al 2015a;Khan et al 2015b). In the present investigation, to improve the fiber matrix interaction, jute fiber surface have been modified by NaOH, dicumyl peroxide, potassium dicromate, and hydrogen peroxide.…”

“…The NaOH treated fiber were treated by 0.055 w/v% K 2 Cr 2 O 7 solution maintained the fiber to liquor ratio 1: 15 for 30 min at 60°C with occasionally added few drops of H 2 SO 4. Then the fiber was washed by distilled water and dried in air (Khan et al 2015b).…”

“…In tropical countries, plenty of abundance lignocellulosic fibers like jute, hemp, ramie, sisal, okra fibers, Palm Oil fiber etc. are grown and most of them have been employed for reinforcements in polymer matrices (Albano et al 1999;Suardana et al 2011;Khan et al 2015b;Khan et al 2016, Ramez A. Al-Mansob et al 2013Islam & Ani 2000). Among the lignocellulosic fibers, jute fiber is promizing on accunt of availability, low densities, nonabrasive nature, high specific properties, high modulus and renewable nature.…”

Effect of Surface Treatment on the Physical, Chemical, and Mechanical Properties of Palm Tree Leaf Stalk Fibers

“…The tensile and bending strengths of the developed composites were improved by surface modifications, with alkali treatment and cyanoethylation producing the best mechanical properties. Alkali, acetic anhydride, acrylonitrile, KMnO4, diphenylmethane disocyanate, and benzoyl chloride treatments were used on jute fiber mat reinforced PLA composites (Khan et al 2015); the alkalibenzoylated treated composite showed higher tensile, flexural, and impact strength than the composite made from untreated fibers. Similarly, Rahman et al (2015) prepared a photo-catalytic fiber by modifying the surface of jute fiber with a Bi2O3/TiO2 composite.…”

Influence of Glycidyl Methacrylate Grafting on the Mechanical, Water Absorption, and Thermal Properties of Recycled High-Density Polyethylene/Rubber Seed Shell Particle Composites

“…Combining natural plant fiber (wood, bamboo, sisal, jute, rice hull, etc. ) instead of synthetic fiber (glass or carbon fiber) with recycled thermoplastic polymers is receiving more attention, due to the many advantages of natural fiber: enormous quantity, high specific strength and modulus, environmentally friendly characteristics, low cost, good machineability, and recyclability (Segerholm et al 2012;Kaewkuk et al 2013;Petchwattana and Covavisaruch 2013;Cavdar et al 2014;Xue et al 2014;Khan et al 2015).…”