Investigation on Mechanical Properties of Chemically Treated Banana and Areca Fiber Reinforced Polypropylene Composites

The intent of this work is to investigate the mechanical properties of chemically treated banana and areca fibers as reinforcement for various applications. Compression molding technique was used to prepare the composites. Fiber loading was varied by 5 and 10 volume weight percentages. Both areca and banana fiber were chemically treated with 5 wt.% sodium carbonate. Tensile, flexural and hardness Testes were carried out. On seeing the results, it was witnessed that the mechanical properties and thermal stability got increased with fiber loading and sodium carbonate treatment. Ten fibers reinforced composite provided the best set of mechanical and thermal properties, while banana fiber reinforced polypropylene composites had slightly better properties as compared to jute fiber reinforced polypropylene composites.