Effect of Natural Fibers on Properties of Polymeric Composites

Abstract

Due to environmental pollution aspects and increase of harmful emissions around us which caused from using non-natural compounds in the field of industry, many different health and environmental problems have been resulted. Natural fibers became good candidates to invade the field of industry as an alternative to synthetic fibers due to low cost, low density and good properties compared with other fibers.

In this research, the effect of natural fiber on polymeric composites was studied; banana Pseudo stem BPS fiber was selected due high availability (3.5 million banana trees /year) and non-exploitation of it, and select acrynitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) due to its applications in automotive industry and 3D printing and increase in market share forecasting till 2020.

Firstly, Banana Pseudo Stem (BPS) fibers were extracted by fiber extractor machine then crushed by crushing machine and sieved to (short size fibers with average size 0.21mm) by three manual hand sieves followed by alkaline treatment (5% NaOH – 1% HCL). Moisture content test was done for fiber before and after treatment, the treated fibers were dried in oven at C for 48 hrs.