Study of Mechanical, Thermal, and Rheological Properties of Areca Fiber-Reinforced Polyvinyl Alcohol Composite

ABSTRACT

In the present work, polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) thermoplastic matrix has been reinforced by randomly oriented short areca sheath (AS) fiber to prepare PVA/AS composite by injection molding. The fiber has been chemically modified with benzyl chloride to have better compatibility with PVA matrix. Different mechanical properties such as tensile strength, Young’s modulus, flexural strength, flexural modulus, and impact strengths of the composite with varying weight percentage of treated fibers have been studied and the optimum weight percentage has been determined by regression analysis. It has been observed that the maximum values of mechanical properties of the composite are obtained at optimum weight percentage (i.e., 27 wt%) of AS fiber. The chemical interaction of polymers with fibers has been characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and scanning electron microscopy at this fiber loading. The thermal properties of the composite have been studied through dynamic mechanical thermal analysis, thermal gravimetric analysis, and differential scanning calorimetry at optimum fiber loading. Rheological properties of the composite in terms of complex viscosity (η*), storage modulus (G′), loss modulus (G″), and damping factor (tan δ) have been investigated through a parallel plate rheometer and compared with virgin PVA. From the characterization and study of properties, it is observed that PVA/AS composite gives best performance at optimum fiber loading.

摘要

以随机取向短槟榔鞘纤维为增强材料，通过注射成型制备聚乙烯醇/聚乙烯醇复合材料。用氯化苄对纤维进行化学改性，使其与PVA基体有较好的相容性。研究了不同处理纤维重量比的复合材料的拉伸强度、杨氏模量、弯曲强度、弯曲模量和冲击强度等力学性能，并通过回归分析确定了最佳重量百分比。已经观察到，在最佳重量百分比（即27重量%）的纤维的复合材料的机械性能的最大值得到。用红外光谱、X射线衍射和扫描电镜对聚合物与纤维的化学相互作用进行了表征。通过动态力学热分析、热重分析和差示扫描量热法对复合材料的热性能进行了研究。在复杂的粘度的复合材料的流变性能（η*），储能模量（G）、损耗模量（G）和阻尼因子（谭δ）进行了研究，通过一个平行板流变仪和维珍聚乙烯醇相比。从表征和性能的研究中观察到，在最佳纤维负载情况下，PVA复合材料具有最佳的性能

KEYWORDS:

• Areca sheath (AS) fiber
• polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)
• thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA)
• Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR)
• scanning electron microscopy (SEM)
• rheology

关键词:

• 槟榔鞘（AS）纤维
• 聚乙烯醇（PVA）
• 热重分析（TGA）
• 傅立叶变换红外光谱（FTIR）
• 扫描电子显微镜（SEM）
• 流变学