Development and characterization of jute composites for sustainable product: effect of chemical treatments and polymer coating

Abstract

In this work, woven jute fibres were subjected to ecofriendly and chemical treatments (alkali, benzoylation and sodium bicarbonate) and PLA coating in order to improve the adhesion with epoxy thereby improvement in the performances of their composites. Treated and coated jute fibres reinforced epoxy composites were prepared by hand lay-up technique keeping constant 30 wt% of fibres content in the each composite. Mechanical properties (i.e. tensile, flexural and impact) and dynamic mechanical properties (i.e. storage modulus, loss modulus, damping and glass transition temperature) of prepared composites were studied. The outcomes from the experimental results suggested that benzoyl chloride treated and PLA coated jute composite exhibited the best performance as compared to other all the composites. There were 21%, 40.6% and 27.5% improvement in tensile strength, flexural strength and impact strength respectively for this composite as compared to that of untreated jute fibre reinforced composites. Moreover, storage and loss modulus of jute composites were also significantly enhanced by treatment and coating. The present developed composites can be used for medium strength application in the field of automobile, building and construction and packaging.

Keywords

• coating
• treatment
• polymer composite
• dynamic mechanical properties
• mechanical properties