Development of jute reinforced composite and study of its physico-chemical properties

Abstract

The present work is dealt with the preparation and the investigation of the structural and electrical properties of some very important jute based products, such as microcrystalline ceIlu.lose(MCC), cellulose acetate(CA) and cellulose acetate plastic(CAP). MCC is prepared by some chemical treatments of jute. CA is then prepared from MCC by acetylation and finally the CA is plasticized to prepaR CAP. It is found from the X-ray diffiactograms of raw jute, MCC, CA and CAP that the raw jute is poor crystalline, MCC and CA are relatively more crystalline than raw jute, on the other hand some structural modifications take place in the CAP sample fOf the addition ofplasticizers. The DTA traces show a common small endo1herntic peak in all the samples and two exothennic peaks in the case of raw jute and MCC. The ftrst exothermic peak in the DT A trace of raw jute and MCC is due to the oxidation, chain stripping and associated reactions and the second exothennic peak occurs due to the ordering of the samples. In the case ofMeC, both the exothennic peaks are found more prominent and sharp. Only one exothennic peak is observed in the CA sample, which is due to the ordering of the sample. But in CAP sample three exothennic peaks are observed, frrst two exothennic peaks are due to the plasticizers and the third exothermic peak is due to the ordering of the sample, From the TGA traces it is found that the maximum weight loss occurs in raw jute is -450/0. for MCC the weight loss is ~90%, for CA it is ~85% and for CAP it is ~56%_ From the IR spectra of raw jute, MCC, CA and CAP, it appears that all the samples contain a few percentage of ash for which transmittance hands are found very small at around 1040 em"l and again for all the samples, strong transmittance bands are fuund around 600cm"j which may be due to the Pmlence of mineral materials. It is found from the DC electrical measurements that the rawjute-shows ri ~c~;cting ) , nature, whereas MCC, CA and CAP show tw;' distinct behaviours, first semiconducting nature upto 3l9K and then dielectric behaviour above 3I9K.