Experimental Characterization of Banana-Palm Fiber Reinforced Hybrid Polymer Composite

Abstract

Composite materials are synthesized by using natural cellulose fibers with matrix, due to their improved properties. In this work, banana and palm fibers are treated with 2% and 8% NaoH, respectively, for the removal of lignin and hemicelluloses. The hybrid composite was fabricated by using epoxy resin as the matrix and both the fibers as reinforcement through the hand lay-up method. By varying the banana and palm fibers in the range of 5-15% wt. and 7.5-22.5% wt. in the composite of 20% wt. and 30% wt. reinforcement, respectively, The composite consists of 5/15% wt. treated fibers, having more influence on compressive strength of 222.46 MPa and flexural strength of 535 MPa. However, 7.5/22.5% wt. treated composite has a higher impact resistance of 14.6 J and 10/10% treated composite gained a higher water absorption percentage weight of 1.16% at 216 hours. From the experiment, the composite with 5/15% wt. fibers of 20% wt. reinforcement and 80% wt. epoxy is suitable for making kitchen slabs.

Keywords

• composites
• epoxy resin
• banana fiber
• palm fiber
• hand layup techniques