Experimental investigation on physical, mechanical, thermal, and morphological behaviour of silane-modified Borassus flabellifer leaflet fibre reinforced polymer nanocomposites

Abstract

Borassus flabellifer leaflet fibres (BFLF) have indeed been found to be an excellent material for producing low-cost nanocomposites. In this study, the stalk leaflet of Borassus flabellifer was employed to derive an emerging category of fibre. To address the disadvantages of hydroxyl bonding, the extracted leaflet strips were treated with NaOH solution. For the formation of nanoparticles, treated rice husk (RH) samples were ground utilizing stainless steel balls in a mild steel ball mill pot. Rice husk nanoparticles (RHN) were integrated onto the treated bi-lateral leaflet fibre surface with 0.3, 0.5, 0.7, and 0.9 wt percent, utilizing silane coupling agent (KH-171). The composite samples were developed using the hand lay-up method. The developed samples were evaluated to assess the physical, mechanical, thermal, and morphological behaviour of the nanocomposites. FT-IR, XRD, SEM, and EDX analysis were used to examine the properties of BFLF. Selenium nanoparticles (SeNPs) of RHN with an average size of 86–95 nm were employed in this study. The density analysis revealed that the RHN integrated BFLF composites contained fewer voids (1.578 %) as compared to the untreated fibre composites (2.906 %). The findings of the investigation confirm the integration of RHN onto the fibre surface improved the mechanical properties of nanocomposites in terms of tensile strength (13.37 ± 0.66–19.90 ± 0.79 MPa), tensile modulus (1.56 ± 0.07–2.39 ± 0.11 GPa), flexural modulus (2.25 ± 0.11–3.39 ± 0.16 GPa), and Barcol hardness (30.40 ± 1.32–36.00 ± 1.68 HB). The thermogravimetric (TG) investigation verified that the modified nanocomposites had superior thermal stability (315–384 °C). The developed nanocomposites are to be employed in door panels, household appliances, building construction, and room partitions, among other applications, as low-cost, light-weight composites.