Electrical and Dynamic Mechanical Analysis of Sisal Fibril Reinforced Epoxy Composite

The environmental impact and sustainable development has driven research into natural materials based products. Present research work focuses on development and characterization of sisal fibril based polymer composites for electrical insulation applications. Sisal fibril extracted from sisal fibre was used as reinforcement for the development of composites. Composites with different sisal fibril loadings were developed and characterized with respect to dielectric constant, dissipation factor, and dielectric loss factor. Characterization was done for temperature ranging from 30150 degrees C and 1-10 kHz. It was observed that the dielectric constant, dissipation factor and dielectric loss factor progressively increased with the increase in temperature as well as fibril loading and decreased with an increase in frequency. Sisal fibrils were treated with 5% NaOH solution to improve the electrical insulation properties. The dielectric constant values were lower for fibrils subjected to alkaline treatment. The impact on glass transition temperature (T-g) was also measured for both untreated and treated composites. It was observed that the T-g depends on the degree of dispersion and loading of sisal fibril in the composites. FESEM fractograph showed that the chemically treated composite had excellent bonding between fibril and matrix than untreated composites.