Investigation of mechanical properties of jute stick flour reinforced polypropylene composites

Abstract

Now a days, natural fiber reinforced polymer matrix composites had caused revolution in the field of materials and received wide attention of the researchers from all over the world because of their outstanding advantages including environment friendliness, biodegradability, recyclability, cost-effectiveness, and comparable physico-mechanical properties. Among various natural fibers, jute sticks(JSs) are potential natural materials which are easily available in Bangladesh at low cost. However, these materials have not yet considered for manufacturing their composites with polymers and exploring their properties. The present study is, therefore, intended to manufacture JS flour reinforced polypropylene (PP) composites with a view to investigating and evaluating their physico-mechanical properties. The JS flour and PP were melt and mixed with a single screw extruder. This mixture was used to manufacture composites with an injection molding machine. Both raw and chemically treated JS fibers were used in manufacturing the composites. Various mechanical properties such as tensile strength and stiffness, flexural strength and stiffness, Charpy impact strength, and hardness were measured by standard procedures and results were analyzed. Water absorption property was evaluated for 24 hours immersion in distilled water. Scanning electronic microscopic (SEM) images were analyzed to understand the interfacial bonding between JS flour and PP matrix for both the raw and chemically treated fibers. Fourier transform infrared ray (FTIR) analysis was carried out to see the effect of chemical treatment on the change of molecular structures (hydrophilic to hydrophobic) of JS flour. It was found that almost all the mechanical properties were satisfactorily improved for chemically treated JS-PP composites in comparison with those of raw JS-PP composites. However, water absorption property did not improve because of chemical treatments. Further, the water absorption increases with the increase of fiber loading.