Synthesis and Characterization of Hybrid Polymer Composites

Abstract

The replacement of synthetic fibers by natural fibers paves the way for awareness about environmental degradation and stresses on the need for a constant and reliable development for the betterment of the environment.. Therefore this study is based on fabrication and an investigation on the mechanical properties of animal fiber - plant fiber hybrid bio composites. Out of varied plant and animal fibers, the fibers chosen for this research work are coir and human hair. One of the reasons for selecting hair as the reinforcement material is due to the fact that, human hair is unceasingly produced in large quantity and which becomes a waste in large quantity too. Thus, an effective method should be made to utilize such unceasingly produced waste in a better way. Coir fiber is selected due to its wide range of characteristics. The fabrication can be done by hand layup technique. This technique is utilized to manufacture three samples. First one is coir fiber based bio composite, and second is hair based bio composite and the third sample is a hybrid bio composite made from both hair and coir fiber. The bio composite will be verified under mechanical properties such as tensile strength, compressive strength, flexural strength, impact strength and hardness. Mechanical trials conducted previously have disclosed that coir based bio composite is good in compression, flexural and impact strengths. The Hair based composite also has shown higher tensile strength and higher break load. The three composites possess the same hardness because these fibers constitute the matrix phase which is formed by epoxy resin. Analysis of hybrid composite shows that coir and hair composite constitute mutual properties. Therefore it is a better agreement to include hair fiber in the composite to reduce the overall cost of the composite, as the cost of coir is excess.