Factors like environmental and societal awareness often lead to a significant change of action in the development of eco-friendly materials like the family of green composites. Green composites are becoming increasingly apparent as a sensible and potentially viable alternative to the synthetic composites. A healthy synergism of factors to include weight reduction, cost, performance improvement, biodegradable nature, nontoxic properties, and flexibility are often the key motives that provide the much needed impetus for the development of green composites for the purpose of selection and use in a spectrum of applications. The biodegradable or green composites became a viable substitute for the long-established materials and often a challenge to the family of synthetic polymer-based composites. The present study draws attention to the issues and challenges that come in the way of development and characterization of "green" composites primarily on the use of advanced manufacturing processes like injection molding. In this article, the chemical composition, structure, mechanical properties, and classification of the natural fibers are presented and briefly discussed. The mechanical properties, to include tensile response, flexural behavior, and impact strength, of the injection molded composites are presented and adequately discussed. The effect and role of surface treatments and coupling agents on mechanical properties of the family of polymer composites, to include the nonbiodegradable composites, partially green composites, and fully green composites, are examined and adequately discussed.green composite, injection molding, mechanical properties, natural fibers, processing
| INTRODUCTION"Green" composite is a mixture of naturally occurring fiber and a biodegradable polymer (natural resin or synthesized resin). The "green" composites often tend to degrade easily at the end of their lifecycle. Invariably, "green" composites get converted to water (H 2 O) and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) without appreciably influencing the environment. The synthetic polymer composites have a plethora of applications in the fields spanning automobile
In this article, gray relational analysis (GRA) was carried out to study the influence of fiber length, fiber loading, and injection parameters on the mechanical, thermal, and morphological properties of the developed green composites. The green composite was developed by chemically modifying the pineapple leaf fiber (PLF). PLF was chemically treated with 1% Na2CO3 for a period of 6 h. The chemically modified PLF was chopped at a fiber length (L) of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 mm. The fiber loading (D) was also varied to 10, 20, and 30 wt% to study the effect of both fiber length and loading on the tensile and flexural properties of the PLF/PLA green composite developed through injection molding. GRA was employed to determine the optimal fiber length and fiber loading for achieving better tensile and flexural properties of PLF/PLA green composite. The injection parameters considered for producing the PLF/PLA green composite were (a) injection pressure (70, 90, and 110 bars), (b) injection speed (40, 50, and 60 mm/s), and (c) melting temperature (165, 175, and 185°C). The mechanical (tensile, flexural, compression, and shear) and thermal (TGA: thermogravimetric analysis and DTG: derivative thermogravimetric analysis) behavior of the developed PLF/PLA green composite was studied and analyzed. The morphology of the fractured specimens was also inspected using field‐emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM).
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