Novel cattail fiber composites: converting waste biomass into reinforcement for composites

Abstract

Vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding (VARTM), used in manufacturing medium to large-sized composites for transportation industries, requires non-woven mats. While non-woven glass mats used in these applications are optimized for resin impregnation and properties, such optimized mats for natural fibers are not available. In the current research, cattail fibers were extracted from plants (18–30% yield) using alkali retting and non-woven cattail fiber mat was manufactured. The extracted fibers exhibited a normal distribution in diameter (davg. = 32.1 µm); the modulus and strength varied inversely with diameter, and their average values were 19.1 GPa and 172.3 MPa, respectively. The cattail fiber composites were manufactured using non-woven mats, Stypol polyester resin, VARTM pressure (101 kPa) and compression molding pressures (260 and 560 kPa) and tested. Out-of-plane permeability changed with the fiber volume fraction (Vf) of the mats, which was influenced by areal density, thickness, and fiber packing in the mat. The cattail fibers reinforced the Stypol resin significantly. The modulus and the strength increased with consolidation pressures due to the increase in Vf, with maximum values of 7.4 GPa and 48 MPa, respectively, demonstrating the utility of cattail fibers from waste biomass as reinforcements.

Probabilistic model for cattail and canola fibers: effect of environmental conditions, structural parameters, fiber length, and estimators

“…6H 2 O], 75.5% (NaCl), 84.3% (KCl), 93.6% (KNO 3 ) and 100% (H 2 O) according to ASTM D 1776-4 (2008). Before conditioning, WBFs were dried in an oven at 100 C for 12 h. The MC(%) was calculated as a percentage of the ratio of the weight of water absorbed by the sample to the total weight of the sample as expressed in equation (1). where M w is the weight of samples after conditioning and M 0 is the weight of water in samples.…”

“…5965, Sl# VS02075661, manufactured by Instron, Norwood, USA) following the ASTM D3822 method and the procedure described in Shadhin and colleagues (2021). 1,2 The capacity of the load cell used for this study was 1 kN. The tensile testing setup with the fiber frames between the serrated grips in Instron is illustrated in Figure 1(g).…”

“…Shadhin et al (2021) 1 has demonstrated that the cattail fiber diameter determines their mechanical property (tensile modulus and tensile strength). Smaller fiber diameter results in higher modulus and strength.…”

“…This variation in fiber diameter can be explained by the scatter observed in the geometry of the cattail leaf's structure before Fiber retting and extraction conditions affect the structural parameters of the fiber bundles thus contributing to the variability in the mechanical properties. 1 However, some of the calcium oxalate plates are found to be removed creating several pit areas in the microstructure of cattail fiber, which is believed to be due to the exposure of the fibers to different chemicals during retting, neutralizing, and washing. The removed calcium oxalate plates or pit areas are indicated by the red boxes in Figure 5(e).…”

“…15 The strength and moisture regain of WBFs are similar to those of flax and hemp BFs. 8,9,16 The major advantages and environmental benefits of waste biomass cattail and canola fibers are their abundance, [12][13][14] lower density, 1,8,15 higher fiber yield percentage, 1,8,9 and lower greenhouse gas emissions 17 when compared with traditional BFs such as flax and hemp. Furthermore, the production of green composites from cattail 18 and canola 19 fibers have been reported.…”