Effect of different types of banana plants fibres on the physical, mechanical and thermal properties of agar based composites
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Date
2018-06
Authors
Mohamad Ikhwan Muhamad Noor
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Abstract
In this work, three types of banana stem fibres which were from Pisang Awak, Pisang
Nangka, and Pisang Emas were prepared with different compositions of agar that are 10%,
20%, 30% and 40% to form composite. The properties such as physical, mechanical, thermal,
and surface morphology were characterized. Banana fiber and agar were grinded in order to
produce the composite. These two components were mixed homogenously and evenly in order
to get better distribution of the agar with the fibre. The composites were produced using hot
press machine at temperature of 180℃ for 25 minutes. FTIR test was conducted on each types
of banana fibres and agar which were in powder form to determine their functional group.
Water absorption test was conducted using distilled water at room temperature. From the result,
most of the composites showed the high value of water absorption as high content of agar
increase. For mechanical testing, the tensile and impact strength were done to investigate the
properties of the composite. Thermal properties of the composite also have been investigated
by using by using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) to determine the melting
temperature ( Tm ) and glass transition temperature ( Tg) meanwhile Thermogravimetric
Analysis (TGA) was used to determine the decomposition pattern of the composite. As the
content of agar increase to 40%, decomposition temperature increase except for Pisang Emas
composite. The scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to analyze the fracture
morphology of the surface that was taken from impact test. From the SEM test, it can be
observed that characteristic such as void, porosity and fibre pull out were presence on the
fracture surface of the composite which give indication of the interaction between agar and
fibre.