Mechanical and thermal properties of hybrid non-woven kenaf fibre mat-graphene nanoplatelets reinforced polypropylene composites

Abstract

In this study, kenaf fibre mat (NWKFM)-graphene nanoplatelets (GNP) reinforced polypropylene (PP) composites were fabricated by using compression moulding. The hybridization was done to enhance the mechanical and thermal properties by adding different amount of graphene nanoplatelets as filler in the biocomposite samples. Pure PP and nanocomposite samples of PP+GNP were also fabricated. Maleic anhydride grafted polypropylene (MAPP) was used as a coupling agent to increase the interfacial adhesion of matrix and reinforcement of the biocomposites and hybrid composites samples. The chemical composition and constituent changes were studied by using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analysis. The mechanical properties in term of flexural and tensile were tested using a universal testing machine (UTM). Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) was carried out to determine the thermal stability of the composite’s samples. Overall, the results show that the stiffness properties (young’s and tensile modulus) of pure PP and biocomposites enhanced with addition of GNP. The flexural strength also shows promising result with the inclusion of GNP. However, the tensile strength shows a reduction with the addition of GNP. The TGA results reveal that the addition of GNP increases the thermal stability of pure PP and the biocomposites based on the comparison of Tonset values.