Effect of Concentration of NaOH Treatment on Mechanical Properties of Epoxy/Sisal Fiber Composites

Abstract

In recent years, natural fibers incorporation in polymeric resin has received huge attention among the research community. The reasons of demand are multiple that includes its light weight, environmental friendly nature; non-toxic, low cost, easy availability, low processing cost and most importantly they possess characteristics which are comparable to conventional material. With this approach, present work comprises of fabrication of new category of natural fiber reinforced composites with polymer as base matrix. Sisal fiber is selected as reinforcing phase with epoxy matrix. Four different combination of composites are prepared with sisal fiber loading varies from 2.5 wt. % to 10 wt. % using well-known hand lay-up method. Sisal fibers were treated with NaOH at varied concentration to observe the effect of surface modification and its concentration on the developed material. Three different concentration of NaOH is used i.e. 2 mole, 4 mole and 6 mole for preparing three sets of composites. One set is prepared with raw sisal fiber to make total of four sets of composites. Mechanical properties under investigation are tensile behaviour, compressive behaviour and flexural behaviour. The experimental results obtained are compared for optimizing the concentration of NaOH. From the analysis it is seen that composite with surface modified sisal fiber yield better results and further fiber treated with 2 mole NaOH concentration is superior among their counterpart. The maximum tensile strength, compressive strength and flexural strength obtained are 31.5 MPa, 72.5 MPa and 37.8 MPa respectively. All these values are obtained for fiber treated with 2 mole NaOH aqueous solution.

An experimental investigation of epoxy‐based hybrid composites with hexagonal boron nitride and short sisal fiber as reinforcement for high performance microelectronic applications

“…With this, interface interaction between the fiber and polymer increases and results in improvement of the tensile strength. The same has been reported by Yadav et al [24] in their recent work where they studied the effect of NaOH concentration on the tensile strength of SF epoxy composites. Though, for maximum hBN content of 40 wt%, the decreasing trend were noticed even when 3 wt% of SF were added, that is, incorporation of only up to 2 wt% SF increases the tensile strength.…”

Experimental Investigation on Shear Strength and Microstructure of Chemically Treated Sisal Fiber-Reinforced Concrete

“…After such treatments, the hydrophilic (absorbs water) nature of sisal fiber was changed to hydrophobic (does not absorb water). Finally, the sisal fiber was washed with water again to remove excess sulfuric acid from the fiber [27,38]. The size of sisal fiber used was prepared based on the standard of ASTM D 3822-07 [39].…”