Degradation and stability of green composites fabricated from oil palm empty fruit bunch fiber and polylactic acid: Effect of fiber length

Abstract

In this work, polylactic acid and oil palm empty fruit bunch fiber-reinforced green composites have been fabricated by using random and fixed-length fibers through extrusion followed by injection molding. The prepared composites have been characterized by mechanical tests, thermal analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray diffractometry. Among all fabricated composites having various sizes and contents of fibers, 30-mm long and 40 wt% empty fruit bunch fiber-incorporated composites show the optimum tensile strength and modulus. As compared to raw empty fruit bunch fiber-loaded composites, simultaneous ultrasound and alkali-treated empty fruit bunch-reinforced composites have revealed improved mechanical performances, enhanced crystallinity, and thermal stability. In case of soil burial degradation studies, treated empty fruit bunch fiber-reinforced composite has been found to be more stable than untreated fiber-reinforced composite.