Polypropylene—Bamboo/Glass Fiber Hybrid Composites: Fabrication and Analysis of Mechanical, Morphological, Thermal, and Dynamic Mechanical Behavior

Abstract

Hybrid composites of polypropylene reinforced with bamboo and glass fibers (BGRP) were fabricated using an intermeshing counter rotating twin screw extruder followed by injection molding. Maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene (MAPP) has been used as a coupling agent to improve the interfacial interaction between the fibers and matrix. The mechanical properties of the hybrid composites were studied from tensile, flexural, and impact tests. Mechanical tests indicated an increase in tensile, flexural, and impact strength of the BGRP hybrid composites at a bamboo:glass fiber ratio of 15:15 ratio in the presence of 2 wt% of MAPP. Nearly, 69, 86, and 83% increase in tensile flexural and impact strength respectively has been observed as compared with virgin PP. The fiber matrix interfacial morphology of the tensile fractured specimens was studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) which showed less fiber pullout and comparatively less gaps between the fiber and the base matrix in the case of MAPP treated hybrid composites. The crystallization, melting behavior and thermal stability of the hybrid composites were investigated employing differential scanning electron microscopy (DSC) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) showed an increase in thermal stability of the matrix polymer with incorporation of bamboo and glass fibers, confirming the effect of hybridization and efficient fiber matrix interfacial adhesion. The dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) showed an increase in storage modulus (E 0 ) indicating higher stiffness in case of hybrid composites as compared with untreated composites and virgin matrix. The tan spectra presented a strong influence of fiber content and coupling agent on the and relaxation process of PP.

Oil Palm Biomass Fibres and Recent Advancement in Oil Palm Biomass Fibres Based Hybrid Biocomposites

“…Effect of glass fibre loading and MAPP treatment on dynamic mechanical properties of sisal/glass hybrid composites carried out and reported improvement in storage modulus and loss modulus of hybrid composites with hybridization of sisal/pp composite with glass fibres and treatment with MAPP (Ornaghi Jr et al 2010;Nayak and Mohanty 2010b). Dynamic mechanical properties of bamboo/glass fibre hybrid composites were also studied and observed results indicate an increase in storage modulus and decrease in damping properties due to hybridization and treatment of fibres with MAPP as compared to untreated composites and pure matrix (Nayak et al 2009(Nayak et al ,2010cSamal et al 2009b). Until now, there is no any researcher work carried out on thermal stability of banana/sisal and pineapple leaf/glass reinforced hybrid composites but few work reported on dynamic mechanical properties of these hybrid composites.…”

“…In an interesting study on thermal properties such as crystallization, melting behaviour and thermal stability of bamboo/glass hybrid composites and obtained results indicate an increase in thermal stability of bamboo composites due to the higher thermal stability of glass fibre than bamboo fibre (Samal et al 2009b;Nayak and Mohanty 2010b;Lee and Wang 2006). Hybridization of hemp fibre composites with glass fibres shifts the temperature of degradation to a higher value indicating an increased thermal stability of the hybrid composites (Panthapulakkal and Sain 2007).…”

Bamboo Particles-Polyvinyl Chloride Composites: Analysis of Particles Size Distribution and Composites Performance

“…In a comparison to pure PVC (Figure 9 (a) and 10 (a)), water uptake of bamboo particles-filled PVC composites was extremely higher due to the high water uptake capability of bamboo particles as natural filler. The presence of hydrophilic -OH groups in the fibres/particles has influenced the high moisture uptake capacity of any types of natural filled-polymer composites (Samal et al, 2009). …”

“…As the flexural modulus of neat polypropylene (PP) was 1008 MPa, the PP composites mixed with 10%, 30%, and 50% bamboo fibre increased by 87.8%, 215.3%, and 383.2% respectively due to the stiffness increases of the composites (Lee, Chun, Doh, Kang, Lee, & Paik, 2009). According to Samal, Mohanty, and Nayak (2009), tensile modulus of PP-bamboo/glass fibre hybrid composites increased steadily with the increase of filler content from 10% -40%. The increase was attributed to the increased wt% of the fibre loading within the matrix, leading to an efficient stress transfer from matrix to fiber (Samal et al, 2009).…”

“…According to Samal, Mohanty, and Nayak (2009), tensile modulus of PP-bamboo/glass fibre hybrid composites increased steadily with the increase of filler content from 10% -40%. The increase was attributed to the increased wt% of the fibre loading within the matrix, leading to an efficient stress transfer from matrix to fiber (Samal et al, 2009). In term of impact strength, neat PP showed the values of 2.62 kg cm/cm 2 , though the addition of 10% -50% bamboo fibre to the net PP, the values was ranged from 2.94 -3.13 kg cm/cm 2 (Lee et al, 2009).…”