Synthesis and Effect of Nanocellulose Obtained from East Java Kenaf Fiber on Mechanical Properties of Polyurethane Foam Composites as Strong and Lightweight Materials

Abstract

Cellulose is a fascinating biopolymer and sustainable raw material. Cellulose particles with at least one dimension in the nanoscale are referred to as nanocellulose. Kenaf fiber is a natural fiber used in this study because it has high mechanical properties and strong interface adhesion with polymers so it provides superior properties to other natural fibers. Polyurethane (PU) foam is widely used as a core layer in sandwich composite construction to produce a lightweight material. This study presents a synthesis of cellulose nano-fibrils (CNF) extracted from East Java, Indonesia based kenaf fibers, an analysis of the effect of adding CNF as a filler and a reinforcement in PU foam composites, and a formulation of PU-CNF foam composite that provided the best mechanical properties as strong and lightweight materials in structural applications. The CNF extraction from kenaf fiber started by fiber pre-treatment including alkalization and bleaching, then mechanical treatment with an Ultra Fine Grinder to produce CNF suspension. The weight variations of CNF in PU foam were 0, 3, 5, 7, and 10 wt%. PU-CNF composite fabrication using the in-situ polymerization method. CNF characterization included TEM, XRD, and FT-IR. TEM results on CNF show that the CNF diameter is in the range of 40-70 nm. The functional group from the FT-IR results showed that the pre-treatment process on kenaf fiber was successful in reducing the lignin and hemicellulose content. XRD results showed that the CNF crystallinity was 75.22%. The PU-CNF foam composite characterization included a compressive test, 3-point bending test, and SEM. The PU foam composite with 3 wt% CNF reinforcement is the best composite which has the optimum value from the results of the compression test and the 3-point bending test. The compressive strength value increased by 20.01%, from 236.997 kPa to 284.434 kPa, the compressive modulus value increased by 29.21% from 5.67 MPa to 7.32 MPa, and the 3-point bending strength value increased 28.29% from 572.24 to 734.15 kPa. All the results expected to support that CNF was a potential reinforcement material with a high surface area for a wide variety of applications.