BIOCOMPOSITES

Biocomposites
Biocomposites or Green composites are fully degradable composites that are made up of biopolymer matrix and natural fibres as reinforcing phase.

Need of biocomposites
To reduce depletion of petroleum reserves To reduce environmental pollution To utilise the agricultural waste To help attain sustainable development

Reinforcement
Reinforcing fibres are cheap and degradable Use of agricultural waste like bagasse, oil palm fibre, coir and rice husk etc. High amount of fibres/fillers reduces the quantity of matrix used. Fibres have disadvantages like aggregation and moisture absorption Composites thus made have poor interface and poor impact strength

Moisture
It hinders the dimensional stability as both matrix and fibres are hydrophillic Affinity toward water leads to delamination as the coupling agent no longer bonded to the fibre

Fibres used
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. Jute Flax Ramie Hemp Kenaf Sisal Coir Oil palm fibre Bamboo Pineapple fibre Abaca/banana fibre Wood flour Sugarcane bagasse and rice husk

Availability

Unique about fibres

Jute- 1. most widely studied lignocellulosic fibre 2. cheapest lignocellulosic fibre in our country 3. has high value of strength 400-800 MPa and modulus 30 Gpa 4. Grown for fibres, it is not a waste 5. Is not single cell fibre like cotton,so fibrillation can be used after removing bider lignin

Bamboo fibre1. One of the fastest growing crop,mature in 8 months 2. Has spiral angle of 2-10degree so very strong mechanical properties. 3. Has inherent antimicrobial characteristics and easily available 4. It is brittle so problem related to uniform processing 5. It is reported to absorb UV radiation

Oil Palm Fibre 1. is one of the large agricultural waste 2. For 1 ton of oil,10 ton fibre waste is generated 3. Large quantity is used as fuel or left open in environment 4. Has inherent pores on its surface that helps in mechanical interlockinh with matrix 5. Drawback is the residual oil in the fibre 6. There is large variation in diameter

Kenaf has advantages of very high speed growth. It can grow upto 10cm per day. Mature in 3 months. Moreover it is cultivable in wide variety of weather. It suffers from severe agglomeration tendency due to hydrogen bond formation. Sisal 1. grown in Brazil and east asia only 2. It is a hard leaf fibre 3. microfibril angle of 10-22 have a tensile strength of 530 MPa

ABACA/BANANA 1. fibre is having a large lumen and are strong fibres. 2. These are found to have good saline water resistivity. 3. These are strongest among commercially available cellulosic fibres and its composites have better impact properties than flax and jute. 4. It is a kind of waste

Rice husk , coir and bagasse are the agricultural waste and are thus abundant.

Chemical treatment
Natural fibres allow moisture absorption from the environment which leads to poor bonding with the matrix materials. Chemical treatment modifies surface as well as chemistry of fibre in many cases. Chemical treat performs 2 functions 1. Removal of binding lignin to open up fibril bundle 2. To make the fibre non polar by substituting its hydroxyl group. Thus the fibre is compatible with various hydrophobic resins Various treatments are as follows.......

Mechanism for natural fibres

Most natural fibres are lignocellolosic. Cellulose+lignin+hemicellulose lignin binds the fibrils Removing lignin Exposes fibrils... Fibrillation surface becomes rough Treatment should be peripherial only

examples
Sisal

jute

Alkylation or NaOH treatment

This involves treatment with Naoh at low conc. 1% to 18% with variable time (2-8 hours) fibres treated at high NaOH concentrations have reduced thermal resistance. X-ray studies reveal that order of the crystallite packing increase rather than an increase in the intrinsic crystallinity. Surface OH bonds are modified as there is no peak at 1740 /cm shown in FTIR It reduces fibre diameter and uniforms it so that bonding and stress transfer improves.

Hemp sisal and jute treated at 8% NaOH upto ~8hrs shows similar effect where lignin reduces and fibre bundle opens up.

Only Kapok required high amount 400% for same result. Reason is very highly packed crystalline structure of Kapok.
Some results are as follows....

At low NaOH conc the crystallinity improves but lowers at high conc. Cellulose structure changes (I to II) Experiments also done on 50% NaOH on coir and 5 % NaOH was used for removing residual oil from oil palm fibres. Usually at low conc 5% or less, time varies from 2 to 72 hours. At elevated temperature fibrillation takes place

Acetylation
Substitution of surface OH group by stearic acid group or acetic group acetic acid and acetic anhydride individually does not react sufficiently with the fibres So fibres are initially soaked in acetic acid treated with acetic anhydride for 1-3 hours at elevated temp In another method glacial acetic acid and acetic anhydride treatment is done subsequently with few drops of H2SO4.

Some results are as follows.......

acetylation will make the fibres non-polar and it becomes non reactive to polar resins like cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL) When tested on Flax fibre,the strength did not dropped significantly.

Silane treatment
Silane treatment is done to improve the hydrophillic nature of fibre. stages of hydrolysis, condensation and bond formation during the treatment.

# silane coupling agents act as a surface coating. # This penetrates into the pores and develops mechanically interlocked coatings on fibre surface. # Silane treated fibre composites provide better tensile strength properties than the alkali treated fibre composites # chemical link between the surface of the cellulose fibre and the resin through a siloxane bridge.

Benzylation

uses benzoyl chloride

soaked in benzoyl chloride solution for 15mins

alkali pretreatment is to activate the hydroxyl groups

ethanol solution- 1h remove benzoyl chloride

washing with water and oven dried

Other chemical techniques

Peroxide treatment Sodium chlorite treatment Isocyanate treatment Permanganate treatment Triazine treatment Oleoyl chloride treatment Fungal treatment

Modify fibre surface By physical methods internal chemical structure is intact, only surface topography is changed 1. Plasma treatment- role of gas used, pressure of air. 2. Corona discharge- Surface itching for short time 3. Stretching , calendring , thermo treatment