Anizah Kalam

Physical and mechanical characterizations of oil palm fruit bunch fiber filled polypropylene composites

Pulverized oil palm fruit bunch (OPFB) fiber was used as filler in Polypropylene (PP). Pulverized OPFB was added at various sizes (250 μm, 180 μm, 125 μm, and 100 μm) to study its effect on the physical and mechanical properties of OPFB filled PP. OPFB powder was mixed with polypropylene at 20 wt% and maleic anhydride polypropylene (MAPP) was also added as coupling agent at 2 wt%. Water absorption behavior of composites followed the normal trend where the water uptake increases with the increasing of OPFB size due to its hydrophilic characteristic. The incorporation of OPFB also decreases the thermal stability of composites at initial stage. Tensile and flexural properties were enhanced with the addition of OPFB powder and further increased with the increase of OPFB size. Meanwhile elongation at break and impact strength were decreased with the increase of OPFB size. SEM observation on the fracture surface of tensile, flexural, and impact tested samples provide further understanding on the effect of OPFB as filler in the matrix.

Mechanical Properties of Oil Palm Fibre Reinforced Epoxy for Building Short Span Bridge

Oil palm industries generate at least 30 million tonnes of lignocellulosic biomass annually in the form of oil palm trunks (OPT), empty fruit bunches (EFB), oil palm fronds (OPF) and palm pressed fibres (PPF). At present, the biomass is either left to rot in the plantations to provide organic nutrients to the oil palm trees (mulching) or used as solid fuel in the boilers to generate steam and electricity at the mills. An oil palm plantation produces about 55 tonnes ha-1 yr-1 of total dry matter in the form of fibrous biomass as compared to only about 5.5 tonnes ha-1 yr-1 of palm oil and palm kernel oil.1 The fibrous biomass is yet to be commercially exploited. Technology development in the industry is still focused on process development and improvement rather than creating and inventing newer products for value-added application. The need for materials not harmful to the body but having appropriate properties has increased due to a lack of resources and increasing environmental pollution. Thus, composites prepared from recycled materials are actively being sought after. Many synthetic polymeric materials are produced by combining with various reinforcing fillers to improve their mechanical properties and obtain the desired properties. Among these reinforcing fillers, active research is under way concerning the use of lignocellulosic materials, which are among the most environmentally friendly agrowastes, as a substitute for synthetic materials. 3 Lignocellulosic materials offer many environmental benefits when used as reinforcing fillers for plastics, including their making the final product lightweight, decreasing the erosion of the manufacturing machinery, low cost, biodegradability, and absence of production of residue or toxic by-products when burnt.

Dry Sliding Wear of Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch (OPEFB) Epoxy Composite

This paper presents an experimental study carried out to determine the effects of fibre size on the mass loss, specific wear rate, roughness, and temperature distribution of Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch (OPEFB) epoxy composites. These epoxy samples were produced by mixing raw OPEFB fibres with epoxy. The samples were prepared at different sizes of fibres (100, 125, 180 and 250µm). Wear tests in dry sliding condition was carried out using Abrasion Resistance Tester (TR-600. The wear tests were performed at room temperature with two different loads (10 and 30N) and at constant sliding velocity of 1.4m/s. Mass loss and specific wear rate values for the composite materials were obtained and roughness values before and after abrasion were recorded. Temperature changes during abrasion testing of the composite surfaces were also captured using Infrared Camera. The mass loss was significantly higher for the smallest fibre size (100µm) examined at 30N. At other fibre sizes, the mass loss values were relatively closed. Distribution and orientation of fibres are suspected to have influenced the trend observed in the results.

The Effect of Bath Ph on the Phase Formation of Ternary Co-Ni-Fe Nano-Coatings

This study describes how the control of bath pH allows different types of phase formation in the ternary Co-Ni-Fe nanocoating. The acidity of the plating bath has been known as a main factor to the properties of coatings. The Co-Ni-Fe coating was fabricated using a commercial electrodepostion process. Several pH solutions (3, 7 and 9) were employed to determine the optimum condition for Co-Ni-Fe synthesis. The bath pH was varied by using sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sulphuric acid (H2SO4). Other parameters such as temperature, electrolyte composition, deposition time and current density were kept constant. The experiment was performed at 50°C. This temperature is commonly used in the industrial plating process. XRD analysis indicated the presence of both phases: body centred cubic (BCC) and face centred cubic (FCC) dependent on the pH value. Co-Ni-Fe nanocoatings obtained from the electrolyte of low pH showed the fine-grain morphology. The hardness of the Co-Ni-Fe nanocoatings was closely related to the obtained morphology.

Thermal degradation and water absorption behaviors of oil palm fruit bunch (OPFB) fiber and its composites

This paper investigates the thermal degradation and water absorption behaviours of OPFB composites and OPFB hybrid composites at different OPFB size. The result shows that TGA test can be used to estimate the percentage of filler in the composites. Incorporation of OPFB in PP has decreased the degradation temperature of composites. Water absorption test was conducted on OPFB composites at different OPFB size, which showed that higher OPFB size tend to absorb more water due to its pores structure. Most OPFB/PP composites reach water saturation at about the same time which was on the 150th days with about 3.0% - 3.5% water uptake. The presence of nanoclay in OPFB/PP composite has increased the water uptake of about 9%.

Effect of Fibre Size on the Tensile Properties of Oil Palm Empty Fruit Bunch Fibre Composites

The principal aim of this project was to achieve a better understanding of the various parameters that contribute to the tensile properties. These parameters were manipulated in order to improve and produced PPnanoclay/ Polypropylene (PP) reinforced oil palm empty fruit bunch composite material (OPEFB). OPEFB fibre was treated with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) in order to improve the tensile properties of the composites. Thus, in this study the oil palm empty fruit bunch fibres were used as a filler and PPnanoclay/ PP composite as the matrix material. Tensile test was used to assess the effect on the tensile strength and tensile modulus of OPEFB/PPnanoclay/PP composites. Morphologies of the composites were examined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM). The average tensile properties obtained were tensile strength 22 MPa at 180 µm and Young’s modulus 2120 MPa at 355 µm treated.

Conversion of biomorphic silicon carbide from wood powders carbon template

Ecoceramic product produced by natural and renewable resources is a new variety of materials which has been widely used in industries over the recent years. A novel process regarding the fabrication of biomorphic silicon carbide ceramics has been explored from natural wood waste. The synthesis of biomorphic silicon carbide (SiC) requires two crucial processes, which are pyrolysis and silicon infiltration. In this study, the processing and characterization of silicon carbide ceramics from natural wood powders precursor was investigated by using two types of Asian wood powders, which are Kapur and Dark Red Meranti. The fine wood powders were hot pressed to obtain pre-templates, which then undergo carbonization process to form carbon templates. Pyrolysis up to 850°C was conducted in Argon flow atmosphere to produce the carbon template. The carbon template was then converted into biomorphic SiC ceramics through liquid infiltration at 1500°C. This study was to investigate the effect of infiltration holding tim...

Effect of Alkaline Treatment on Tensile and Impact Strength of Kenaf/Kevlar Hybrid Composites

This study is about the hybrid composite which used the woven Kevlar, long Kenaf fibre, and unsaturated polyester as the matrix. It focused on the mechanical characterization and properties of hybrid composite. The hybrid composites were fabricated by treated and untreated kenaf fibre and Kevlar as reinforcement in unsaturated polyester matrix using hand lay-up process. Effect of 6wt% of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) on the hybrid composites were analyzed using X-ray Diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis. The tensile and impact performance of the samples were tested according to the standard ASTM D3039 and ASTM D3763, respectively. Based on scanning electron micrograph (SEM) morphological examination, it revealed that the interfacial adhesion between the fibre surface and polymer matrix were improved. The results proved that the alkaline treatment can help to improve the mechanical properties compared to the untreated kenaf fibre.

The Compressive Properties of Kevlar/Kenaf Hybrid Composites

Natural fibres are aimed to replace or at least to reduce the dependence of the industrial sector against low degradability of raw material. Hence, this study is performed to investigate the effect of stacking sequence and fibre orientation on the compressive properties of Kevlar/kenaf hybrid composites. Previous study suggested that treated kenaf fibres improved the fibre’s properties. Therefore, kenaf fibres was treated with NaOH of 6% concentration for 12 hours before rinsed and dried to be used in this study. The stacking sequence was varied for different weight percentage of woven Kevlar from 0 wt% to 23 wt%, while the kenaf fibres were arranged at 0° and 90° orientation, respectively. The compressive properties of the Kevlar/kenaf fibre hybrid composites were investigated using Instron Universal Testing Machine (ASTM standard D3410M). Stereo-zoom was used to identify the fibre orientation and the bonding between the fibres and matrix. For stacking sequence, the study showed that the arrangement of kenaf fibres on the middle part, “sandwiched” between Kevlar on the outer part, gave the best compressive performance. The sample in 0° orientation exhibited better compressive strength and modulus than 90° orientation. The outcome of this research has shown significant increase of compressive strength with the addition of kenaf fibre replacing the Kevlar.

Impact Toughness of Kenaf Powder, Polypropylene and Kevlar

mpact and tensile properties were carried out on Kenaf Powder (K) Polypropylene (PP) reinforced with Kevlar (KV) composites plate prepared in-house using hot press technique. The effect of bonding agent, Maleic Anhydride grafted Polypropylene (MAPP), on the strength and impact toughness was also conducted. The size of kenaf powder used was limited to 100μm. The kenaf/polypropylene composite designated as KPP specimens were tested through tensile test (ASTM D 638) and izod test (ASTM D256) for 20-40% weight ratio of kenaf powder. The optimum weight ratio of KPP sample was selected and then underwent for the drop impact testing. The selected KPP sample was further reinforced with Kevlar cloths. This hybrid composite is designated as KPP/KV sample and further tested in izod impact and drop tests. The impact toughness of KPP reinforced with KV is almost 4-6 times without KV. There are also slight improvements in the impact toughness of the KPP/KV samples with MAPP.