Thermal Properties of Unsaturated Polyester Reinforced Kenaf Core Fiber with Hybrid Nanofillers of Cellulose Nanocrystal and Graphene Nanoplatelet

Abstract

The rising concern regarding plastic waste disposal issues had induced the need for versatile polymer-based materials with biodegradable properties to be optimally used in various applications. A massively abundant kenaf core fiber (KCF) is literally a great natural fiber to be explored as reinforcement filler because of its potential in mechanical, low cost and biodegradable. In this work, KCF were incorporated into unsaturated polyester (UPE) by using hand lay-up technique and hot compression moulding. The hybridization approach based on the utilization of nanofillers cellulose nanocrystal (CNC) and graphene nanoplatelet (GNP) also were added along the fabrications of UPE-KCF bio-composite to observe their impacts on thermal stability and its behaviour which were analyzed under thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) analysis. From the result, KCF shows a great potential in improving thermal stability with high residue. The compatibility between both nanofillers also provided even higher thermal stability for maximum degradation temperature (Tmax) up to 387.8 °C and char residue with the range of 42.1-47.8% at 400-500 °C recorded by sample UKC1G2, and UKC0.5G2.5 respectively. However there were no obvious changes observed for the glass transition temperature (Tg) from DSC scan analysis upon the incorporation of single KCF or when nanofillers were added. Overall, hybrid loading of kenaf fiber with 3 wt% nanofillers shows appreciable impact on thermal properties of unsaturated polyester.