Evaluation of viscoelastic properties of OPMF biocomposites

The past decades have shown a growing interest in natural fibres as reinforcing material in composites primarily due to environmental concerns and awareness of limiting petroleum resources to produce petroleum-based synthetic polymers. Since, thermoplastic polymer such as Linear Low Density Polyethylene (LLDPE) has difficulty in natural degradation, filling it with natural fibres such as oil palm mesocarp fibre (OPMF) is considered one of the solutions to improve its biodegradability. The objectives of this study are; (1) to study of viscoelastic properties of Oil Palm Mesocarp Fiber (OPMF) biocomposite by mechanical test via cyclic and stress relaxation test; and (2) to study the viscoelastic properties of OPMF due to the effect of chemical modification. OPMF was prepared by washing with detergent and ovendried before being grinded and sieved. The OPMF grafting LLDPE (OPMF-g-LLDPE) was produced via twin-screw extruder and hot press moulding at varying fibres content from 10wt% to 60wt% with the presence of varying monomer, maleic anhydride (MAH) concentration at 5wt%, as well as constant initiator, dicumyl peroxide (DCP) at 2wt% in order to prepared samples from characterization and mechanical properties test. For the tensile test showed that at loading 50% of OPMF the maximum amount of tensile stress can be can be loaded. Next for the stress relaxation test showed that the higher relaxation rate at the loading of OPMF is 40% content that means the stress relaxation is becomes the fastest. Besides, the cyclic test showed as increasing the loading of OPMF after grafting polymerization process shows that the biocomposites become more elastic behaviour. From this study, it was found that the grafting copolymerization on the OMPF-LLDPE biocomposites can increase the viscoelastic behavior