Micro-fibril cellulose as a filler for glass fiber reinforced unsaturated polyester composites: Fabrication and mechanical characteristics

The waste produced by bamboo stick production processing was collected from a Vietnamese craft village and used as a source of microfibril cellulose (MFC) for a filler of unsaturated polyester (UP) resin based composites in this study. A mixture of MFC in UP was obtained by directly introducing the bamboo pulp into UP resin followed by a grinding process using a ball-grinding machine. A master batch method was also adopted for composite preparation, in which a high-content solution of MFC in UP resin was first fabricated and then diluted to prepare another solution with the desired content. Morphology and mechanical characteristics of UP resin based composites were investigated. Effect of different methods of preparation, such as hand lay-up and vacuum bagging methods, on the mechanical properties of glass fiber reinforced UP resin composites was also examined, showing that the tensile strength of composite materials with 0.3 wt% MFC was increased by 10.24% (for the hand lay-up method) and 19.62% (for the vacuum bagging method) when compared with the pristine composite material. The flexural strength increased from 192.40 MPa to 208.63 MPa and the impact strength increased by 19.6% from 158.28 kJ/m2 to 186.84 kJ/m2 for the hand lay-up method.