Dynamic and Static Characterizations of Biodegradable Polymer Composites

Abstract

Worldwide concerns over disposal of petroleum derived polymers led to an increase in governmental regulations and environmental awareness. Using composite materials consisting of natural fibers and biodegradable plant-based polymers provides environmental benefits in terms of raw material utilization and safe disposal at theend of their life cycle. These natural composite materials arealready being used in someapplications such as car doors, sandwich plates, interior paneling, and tubes. Starch is regardedas a promising biodegradable material owing to its wideavailability andlow cost. However, starch has relatively low mechanical properties and tends to absorb moisture. These drawbacks can becontrolled by adding fibers into starch matrix to form composites. Several types of natural cellulose fibers such as jute, sisal, date palm, and hemp have been used asreinforcements for starch-based composites. This work examines theeffect of DPF content and moistureabsorption on the tensileand impact strengths of starch matrix composites. In addition, the fatigue behavior of thermoplastic starch (TPS) reinforced with short date palm fibers (DPFs) were investigated under bending loading conditions and the power law model was used to describe the fatigue damage behavior. Biodegradable composites of starch–date-palm fibers were prepared by first plasticizing corn starch and chemically treating the fibers before being formed by compression molding. Theeffect of fiber content on mechanical properties was examined and it was found that tensile strength and Young’s