Mechanical property of surface modified natural fiber reinforced PLA biocomposites

Natural fibers have recently become attractive to researchers, engineers and scientists as an alternative reinforcement for fiber reinforced polymer composites. This paper is focused on the tensile properties of natural fiber reinforced polylactic acid composites. The untreated and flexible epoxy treated bamboo fiber, vetiver grass fiber and coconut fiber were used as reinforcement for PLA biocomposites. The stiffness of untreated biocomposites increased significantly with increasing of fiber content. However, the tensile strength decreased with increasing of fiber content. The flexible epoxy surface treatment reduced the stiffness of all composites while it considerably increased tensile strength when compared against the untreated composites. In addition, it can be seen that the effects of flexible epoxy treated on the tensile strength improvement were dependent upon the type of natural fiber. The tensile strength of bamboo fiber and coconut fiber reinforced PLA composites were significantly improved by the flexible epoxy surface treatment. Unlike the other combinations, vetiver grass fiber reinforced PLA composite showed less improvement in tensile strength when comparing with other natural fibers. Bamboo fiber proved to be the most effective reinforcement compared to other reinforcements. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.