Plant Extraction and Physicochemical Characterizations of Untreated and Pretreated Diss Fibers (Ampelodesmos mauritanicus)

Abstract

The Ampelodesmos mauritanicus plant, Mauritanian grass or also called ‘Diss’, is a perennial abundant plant on the Mediterranean contour, having attractive characteristics for ecofriendly materials. This work aims to highlight the potential of the Diss fibers elements by assessing their use as reinforcement for polymer matrices (bio-composite). So, untreated and treated Diss fibers by chemical (soda, silane and acetic acid) and thermal treatment have been manually extracted and characterized to evaluate their surface condition as well as their chemical composition, their mechanical properties and their thermal stability. The obtained results have shown many advantages look promising for such an application, especially the fact that the Diss fiber bundles has small diameter (89 ± 22 μm), a rough surface with the presence of thorns, a low density of 0.93 g/cm3, and a tensile strength that can reach 270 MPa. Furthermore, all the treatments adopted have shown improvements regarding the fibrillation of fiber bundles (could reach −40% for the diameter), their surface state, their thermal stability and their mechanical behavior (could reach +60% for Young’s modulus and +15% for tensile stress).

Keywords

• natural fibers
• diss fibers
• thermal properties
• mechanical properties
• microstructural analysis