Effects of Silane Treatment on the Impact and Tensile Properties of Textile Waste Fiber Polymer Composite

The concerns and awareness towards environmental benefits have brought the scope of development on composites materials from textile waste fiber (cotton fiber) and polymer matrix (epoxy resins) as an approach to recycle, reduce and reuse practices for high scale of textile fiber waste. This research study was conducted to investigate the effects of silane fiber treatment on tensile and impact properties. The composite specimens were fabricated using a closed compression molding technique, according to ASTM D5224-12. Physical properties such as the density were calculated according to ASTM D792-08, where the untreated specimen has the highest density value with 1.125 g/cm³ as compared to the variable treated values (1 wt% −1.069 g/cm³, 3 wt% and 5 wt% −1.067 g/cm³). The stress-strain parameters in this study were also attained through tensile test ASTM D3039 standards showing that untreated specimens had the highest tensile strength and tensile modulus with 11.02 MPa and 1.38 GPa, respectively as compared to other silane treated composite specimens. Besides, low-velocity drop weight impact test with a constant 10 J impact load was conducted according to ASTM D7136. All the damaged pattern specimens were inspected at macroscopic level observation. The images seen were captured using a smartphone camera model Vivo Y11. Based on the results obtained, the untreated specimens projected the highest values on tensile strength and modulus and owned maximum impact strength and initiation energy as compared to all treated fiber specimens. The reason is due to fiber strength reduction on the composite materials. Damage pattern observation examined also showed that cracking on the surface area was better on the untreated specimens.