Characterization of banana, sugarcane bagasse and sponge gourd fibers of Brazil
Introduction
It is well known that plant fibers also known as lignocellulosic fibers (LC) have been one of the attractive fillers for different types of polymers including rubbers as well as for ceramic matrices due to some of their unique characteristics unparalleled with any other reinforcing/filler materials. They include biodegradability contributing to a healthy ecosystem, low cost and higher stiffness to those of glass fibers, which would be attractive for the applications requiring stiffness dominant ones such as the automotive applications (Rijswijk and Brouwer, 2002). Additional motivation for their use in composites to receive greater attention in recent times is the increasing ecological considerations with many governments such as European Union passing laws for the use of about 95% recyclable materials with about 85% renewable materials in them in all new automotives to achieve the “end of life” required by 2015 (Netravali and Chabba, 2003, Peijs, 2003). In addition, use of their composites have established comparable performance with those of glass fiber composites with possibility for their use as structural components as well (Bledzki and Gassan, 1999, Burgueno et al., 2004, Corbiere-Nicollier et al., 2001, Dweib et al., 2004, Holbery and Houston, 2006, Joshi et al., 2004, Marsh, 2003, Mehta et al., 2005, Mohanty et al., 2002, Netravali and Chabba, 2003, Peijs, 2003, Rijswijk and Brouwer, 2002, Schloesser, 2004, Schuh and Gayer, 2000, Suddell et al., 2002, Wambua et al., 2003). When such materials are used in composites, developing countries, which produce these, become part of global composite industry as developer and manufacturer leading to increased revenues and creation of jobs (Rijswijk and Brouwer, 2002).
In view of the above, many attempts have been made to characterize the lignocellulosic fibers either individually (Chand et al., 1984, Kulkarni et al., 1981, Mukherjee and Satyanarayana, 1984, Satyanarayana et al., 1986), or as part of their composites research (Jacob et al., 2004). Many of these can be found in various periodic reviews published (Bledzki and Gassan, 1999, Eichhorn et al., 2001, Jacob et al., 2004, John and Thomas, 2008, Satyanarayana et al., 2007) or as chapters in some books (Rowell et al., 2000, Satyanarayana, 2007, Satyanarayana and Wypych, 2007, Satyanarayana et al., 2009). While a large amount of data on their structure and properties is available on a variety of lignocellulosic fibers including various Brazilian fibers, comparative studies of Brazilian fibers and their polymeric composites have been reported only recently (Satyanarayana, 2007, Satyanarayana et al., 2007, Satyanarayana et al., 2009). But, the search is on for finding new resources of such fibers (Beakou et al., 2008, D’Almeida et al., 2006, Elenga et al., 2009, Ghali et al., 2006).
In the case of three fibers chosen in this study, there were only a couple of papers till recently reporting on the properties and utilization of Brazilian banana fiber (Nolasco et al., 1998, Savastano et al., 2000). On the other hand, though a number of papers have been published on sugarcane bagasse and sponge gourd fibers of Brazil origin, most of the publications have reported their characterization as part of composite development (Almeida et al., 2000, Anselmo and Badr, 2004, Boynard and Almeida, 1999, Boynard and Almeida, 2000, Boynard et al., 2003, Hoareau et al., 2004, Satyanarayana, 2007, Satyanarayana et al., 2007, Satyanarayana et al., 2009, Tanobe et al., 2003, Tanobe et al., 2004, Tanobe et al., 2005, Trindade et al., 2004) and thus not exclusively as part of any systematic studies on Brazilian fibers. Reported chemical composition and strength properties on banana and sugarcane bagasse fibers of Brazil are listed in Table 1a, Table 1b.
Taking the above into account, the authors have taken up systematic studies on various lignocellulosic fibers of Brazil including development of composites using these fibers (Guimarães et al., 2006a, Guimarães et al., 2006b, Pinto, 2007, Satyanarayana et al., 2007, Satyanarayana et al., 2009, Tomczak et al., 2007a, Tomczak et al., 2007b).
This paper presents chemical composition, X-ray diffraction, morphological and thermal behavior aspects in respect of three different types of lignocellulosic fibers of Brazil namely, fiber from pseudostem or bark (banana), fruit fiber (sponge gourd) and fiber from grass/agro waste (sugarcane bagasse). It is hoped that such attempts would lead to the better utilization of these LC fibers through composite technology leading to a whole spectrum of opportunities and challenges for many of the developing countries such as Brazil in particular and the world in general keeping in view one of the long-term objectives of such attempts being to fulfil the socio-economic responsibilities of the State.
Section snippets
Materials
Three types of fibers, namely banana fibers (Musa sapientum) obtained from the pseudostem of the plant, sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum) bagasse fibers obtained from a near by alcohol plant production in the city of Curitiba, capital of Paraná (Brazil) and Brazil sponge gourd (Luffa cylindrica) fibers obtained from the local market were used in this study. Banana fibers were extracted from the pseudostem (average diameter of 150 mm) of the banana plant. The leaf sheaths from the pseudostem were
Chemical composition of fibers
Table 2 lists the chemical composition of Brazilian fibers used in this study. It can be seen that all the values of present study are different from those reported earlier (Table 1a). An analysis of the data reveals that in the case of banana fibers, moisture content is lower in the present case, while ash content and Klasson lignin content are higher than the reported values. Lower moisture content may be due to the test procedure used in the present study as explained above (Section 2.2) and
Conclusions
Chemical compositions of three Brazilian fibers (banana, sugarcane bagasse and sponge gourd) studied present study are different from those reported elsewhere due to dependence of chemical composition of lignocellulosic fibers on locality and species.
Banana fibers showed lower moisture content, holocellulose, cellulose and hemicellulose contents, but higher ash and Klasson lignin contents than the reported values elsewhere. Bagasse fibers showed lower ash content with all other contents
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Prof. Cyro Ketzer Saul of Department of Physics, UFPR, for the scanning electron microscopy, Dr. Gregorio G.C. Arizaga of Department of Chemistry, UFPR for the FTIR spectra and Mr. S.G.K. Pillai, Technical Officer and The National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science & Technology [CSIR], Thiruvananthapuram (Kerala—India) for the Optical Microscopy carried out on the fibers. They also sincerely express their gratitude to National Council for Scientific and Technological
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