Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of nanoclay on the mechanical properties of sugar palm fiber-reinforced polyester composites. Organo-modified nanoclay (OMMT) was dispersed in unsaturated polyester resin at various weight contents from 1% to 5% using a mechanical stirrer. Naturally woven sugar palm fibers were reinforced in the nanoclay-modified resin, which were then hot compressed to form the composites. The effect of the OMMT weight content on the tensile, flexural, and impact properties of the composites were analyzed. The addition of OMMT resulted in a noticeable improvement in all of the investigated properties, until a certain weight percentage. The tensile properties showed the best improvements at a 2% nanoclay content. However, the 4% nanoclay content resulted in the best enhancements to the flexural and impact properties.
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Effect of Organo-Modified Nanoclay on the Mechanical Properties of Sugar Palm Fiber-reinforced Polyester Composites
Rao Muhammad Shahroze,a,* Mohamad Ridzwan Ishak,b Mohd. Sapuan Salit,b,c Zulkiflle Leman,a Mohammad Asim,c and Muthukumar Chandrasekar b
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of nanoclay on the mechanical properties of sugar palm fiber-reinforced polyester composites. Organo-modified nanoclay (OMMT) was dispersed in unsaturated polyester resin at various weight contents from 1% to 5% using a mechanical stirrer. Naturally woven sugar palm fibers were reinforced in the nanoclay-modified resin, which were then hot compressed to form the composites. The effect of the OMMT weight content on the tensile, flexural, and impact properties of the composites were analyzed. The addition of OMMT resulted in a noticeable improvement in all of the investigated properties, until a certain weight percentage. The tensile properties showed the best improvements at a 2% nanoclay content. However, the 4% nanoclay content resulted in the best enhancements to the flexural and impact properties.
Keywords: Sugar palm fibers; Polyester; Nanoclay; Nanocomposites; Mechanical properties
Contact information: a: Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia; b: Department of Aerospace Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia; c: Institute of Tropical Forestry and Forest Products (INTROP), Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia;
* Corresponding author: raomshahroze@gmail.com
INTRODUCTION
With such rapid progress in research and technology, there is a need to satisfy the constantly increasing material requirements of these advancements. Composite materials have become an engineering necessity to cater to these needs. Composites are formed by the combination of different materials, which provides a wide range of properties to better suit specific requirements. A polymer matrix composite consists mainly of two components, a polymeric matrix/binder and reinforcements/fibers. The matrix helps to bind the fibers together and protects them from the environment. Reinforcements help to enhance the mechanical properties of the matrix because they are typically stronger, stiffer, and tougher than the binder (Razak and Kalam 2012). An increasing awareness of the environmental impacts from using typical composites, which are derived from non-renewable resources, has shifted the focus to research and production of composites that use materials acquired from renewable sources. This has resulted in an increased use of natural fibers as reinforcements in polymer matrix composites. Various biodegradable waste materials, such as wood chips, plant fibers, newspaper, etc., are now utilized as reinforcements. This also helps reduce the need for synthetic raw materials and mitigate waste management problems (Saba et al. 2016c). Natural fibers offer a wide range of advantages, including a low density, less wearing from tools, better thermal properties, acoustic insulation, lower cost, and biodegradability (Haameem et al. 2016).
A key advantage of using sugar palm fiber (SPF) as reinforcement in composites is that it exists in a naturally woven state (Ishak et al. 2013), which greatly reduces the time, effort, and cost required to transform them into usable reinforcements for composites. Figure 1 shows naturally existing woven SPFs. These fibers grow around a tree and can be extracted without cutting down the tree (Ticoalu et al. 2013), which caters to the preservation needs of sugar palm plants. In the past decade, a number of studies have been performed to explore the potential use of SPF in composites. Sugar palm fibers have been observed to have competitive mechanical and physical properties compared with other natural fibers, such as palmyra, kenaf, and coconut fibers (Sanyang et al. 2016). Sugar palm fibers have extensively been used as a conventional roofing material in Indonesia and Malaysia. However, the difficulty of maintenance, water seepage, high degradability, susceptibility to fungal infections calls for an improvement in the conventional roofing system. Reinforcing the sugar palm fibers in polymers can help to solve the problems as stated above and utilize the abundantly available fibers as well. This is a preliminary study to enhance the mechanical properties of sugar palm reinforced composites for its application as an alternate roofing materials.