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Nowadays, the world is facing a crisis in regards to renewable resources and rising carbon footprint. In the microscopic scale of engineering, this is where natural fibers come into play. Natural fibers comprise of considerable advantages that include being lightweight, inexpensive and renewable in comparison to their synthetic counterparts. The fibers are being used as reinforcement in composite matrices, including hybrid composites. The main issue with natural fibers is the high disparity of its mechanical properties, especially tensile strength. In this study, Weibull statistical analysis is utilised in order to quantify the variation of the probabilistic strength of banana fibers. Single fiber tensile test was performed after the fiber diameters were measured at 1mm intervals along its length. The modified Weibull distribution with conical frustum model can predict the gauge length effect more accurately than the conventional Weibull distribution with cylindrical model.

Zirconium-based ferromagnetic sorbent was fabricated by coprecipitation of Fe2+/Fe3+ salts in a zirconium solution and explored as a potential sorbent for removing the Cu2+, Zn2+, and Cd2+ from aqueous solution. The sorbent could easily be separated from aqueous solution under the influence of external magnetic field due to the ferromagnetism property. A trimodal distribution was obtained for the sorbent with average particle size of 22.74 μm. The –OH functional groups played an important role for efficient removal of divalent ions. The surface of the sorbent was rough with abundant protuberance while the existence of divalent ions on the sorbent surface after the sorption process was demonstrated. Decontamination of the heavy metal ions was studied as a function of initial metal ions concentration and solution pH. Uptake of the heavy metal ions showed a pH-dependent profile with maximum sorption at around pH 5. The presence of the ferromagnetic sorbent in solution at different initial pH has shown a buffering effect. Equilibrium isotherms were analyzed using Langmuir, Freundlich, Dubinin-Radushkevich, and Temkin isotherm models. Adequacy of fit for the isotherm models based on evaluation of R2 and ARE has revealed that heavy metal ions decontamination was fitted well with the Freundlich model.

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