Fabrication and characterization of palmyra fruit fiber nano clay reinforced polymer composite

Abstract

Natural Fiber Reinforced Composites (NFRC) has attracted the newlineresearcher s community worldwide owing to its lightweight and high strength newlineproperties. Various natural fibers are identified and characterized as newlinereinforcement material with polymer matrix. In the present research, fibers newlineextracted from Palmyra fruit has been chosen as reinforcement material with newlineunsaturated polyester matrix.The composites prepared with Palmyra fruit fiber are termed as newlinePalmyra Fruit Fiber Composites (PFFC). It is categorised based on newlinereinforcement as Single Reinforced Composites (SRCs) and Hybrid newlineReinforced Composites (HRCs). In SRCs, PFF is used as reinforcement, newlinewhereas in HRCs, the PFF and MMT nano clay are used as primary and newlinesecondary reinforcements respectively. In both the cases, the PFF with and newlinewithout surface treatment have been employed for composite preparation and newlinesubsequent characterisation. Surface treatment of natural fibers enhances the newlineinterfacial bonding and hence the strength of the composite is increased. In newlinethe present research, different chemical surface treatment processes have been newlinetried and its effect on strength has been reported.The entire research is carried out in two different stages. In Stage-I, theselection of raw materials, optimizing various fabrication parameters and newlinepreparation of specimens are included. In stage-II, the various newlinecharacterizations such as intrinsic and extrinsic properties of the prepared newlinespecimens have been performed. newline newline