Physico-chemical and Morphological Characterization of Cellulose Fibers Extracted from Sansevieria roxburghiana Schult. & Schult. F Leaves

Abstract

The rationale behind this present research is to extract and characterize the cellulosic fibers from the Sansevieria roxburghiana Schult. & Schult. F. leaves to prove their potential as polymer reinforcements. Characterization tests were conducted on the fibers and reported. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and chemical composition tests confirmed the presence of cellulose (78.63wt%), lignin (9.86wt%) and hemicellulose (2.01wt%) along with wax (0.16wt%), ash (1.49wt%) and wetness content (7.85 wt%). The density of the fibers was found as 0.950 g/cm3 from standard pycnometric tests and the X-ray diffraction studies purported the semi-crystalline nature of cellulose. Crystallinity index, degree of crystallinity, and crystallite size of the fibers were computed from the X-ray diffraction studies as 95.55%, 95.74% and 5.25nm, respectively. The hydrogen bond energy and bond distance were found as 6.385kJ and 2.8195Ả, respectively. The tensile strength, percent elongation and Young’s modulus of the Sansevieria roxburghiana fiber was found as 213.6 MPa, 1.12% and 16.02GPa, respectively. Morphological studies showed that these fibers are rough and can maintain inextricable bonding with matrix during composite fabrication. Thus, the fibers possess excellent physical, chemical, and surface morphological features that ratify them to be potential polymeric reinforcing agents in making biocomposites.

Keywords

• sansevieria roxburghiana fibers
• cellulose content
• ft-ir studies
• x-ray diffraction
• hydrogen bond energy
• surface morphology