Effect Of Pineapple Leaf Fiber Length On The Properties Of Pineapple Fiber : Starch Composites

Mashitah, Razi (2015) Effect Of Pineapple Leaf Fiber Length On The Properties Of Pineapple Fiber : Starch Composites. Project Report. UTeM, Melaka, Malaysia. (Submitted)

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Abstract

Nowadays, increasing in researcher about renewable natural fiber had been done in order to become one of the alternative solutions in replacing the synthetic fiber such as glass fiber as reinforced composites materials due to non – biodegradable and non – ecofriendly to the system. Besides, the natural fibers have low cost of production yet have good set of mechanical properties and environmental friendly. Wide industry had chosen the natural fiber as an alternative in developing their product. For example, Mitsubishi Company had used natural fiber to build the interior part of compartment in their car design. One of the natural fiber resources is pineapple leaf fiber (PLF) that had been planted widely in Malaysia. From the current research, PLF contain high cellulose and exhibit good mechanical properties especially from Josapine family. Therefore in this study, the PLF from Josapine was used as reinforced materials and the binder was corn starch (SH) and the effects of the PLF loading and PLF fiber length on the mechanical properties of PLF/SH composites also have been analyzed. Compositions were fixed for 50/50, 60/40 and 70/30 followed by 2 cm, 4 cm and 6 cm of PLF length. PLF has been undergo alkaline treatment to increase the strength of fiber than proceed to extraction and composition process. All nine samples have been undergo four different tests to determine the mechanical properties which are tensile test, hardness, density and microstructure analysis. PLF loading of 70% with 6 cm in length shows the higher values of tensile stress, density and hardness which are 32.98 MPa, 33.63 and 1.20 g/cm3. Besides, it also shows good adhesion between the PLF and the SH matrix.

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