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The Influence of Alkaline Surface Fibre Treatment on the Impact Properties of

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The Influence of Alkaline Surface Fibre Treatment on

the Impact Properties of Sugar Palm Fibre-Reinforced
Epoxy Composites
a a a
D. Bachtiar , S. M. Sapuan & M. M. Hamdan
a
Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia 43400
UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
Published online: 31 Mar 2009.

To cite this article: D. Bachtiar , S. M. Sapuan & M. M. Hamdan (2009) The Influence of Alkaline Surface Fibre Treatment on
the Impact Properties of Sugar Palm Fibre-Reinforced Epoxy Composites, Polymer-Plastics Technology and Engineering, 48:4,
379-383, DOI: 10.1080/03602550902725373

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 Polymer-Plastics Technology and Engineering, 48: 379–383, 2009
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
ISSN: 0360-2559 print=1525-6111 online
DOI: 10.1080/03602550902725373

The Influence of Alkaline Surface Fibre Treatment on the

Impact Properties of Sugar Palm Fibre-Reinforced
Epoxy Composites
D. Bachtiar, S. M. Sapuan, and M. M. Hamdan
Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia 43400 UPM
Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

have a complex structure of elementary fibres, consisting of

Downloaded by [Universiti Malaysia Pahang UMP] at 00:18 23 July 2013

The aim of this study is to determine the impact properties of
sugar palm fibre-reinforced epoxy polymer composite after intro-
duce the alkaline treatment to the fibre. The fibre was treated by
alkaline solution with 0.25 M and 0.5 M NaOH solution for 1 hour,
4 hours, and 8 hours soaking time. Hand lay up process was used to
prepare the composite specimens with 10% volume fraction. The
dimensions of the specimen used to carry out the test were adapted
from ASTM D256 for Izod Impact testing. The higher impact
strength of treated sugar palm fibre reinforced epoxy composite
took place at 0.5 M NaOH solution with 8 hours soaking time,
i.e., 60 J/m with improving by 12.85% from untreated composite.
Keywords Alkaline treatment; Epoxy; Impact strength; Natural
fibre; Sugar palm fibre
INTRODUCTION
Conventional composites such as glass fibre composites
have recently been replaced with natural fibre composites
in many applications. Taking advantage of natural fibre
composite properties compared to glass fibre composites,
such as non-abrasive to equipment and freedom from
health problems due to skin irritation during handling
and processing, the use of natural fibre composites is
preferred.
Natural fibres such as hemp, flax, abaca, sisal, jute,
henequen[1], kenaf, ramie, sugar palm, oil palm, pineapple
leaf, banana pseudo-stem, sugarcane bagasse, coir, rice
husk, wood, and bamboo[2] have been reported to be used
as fibres in polymer composites. However, these promising
fibres possess some negative characteristics such as: they
are highly hydrophilic and they can vary a lot in properties
because of the influence of their growing conditions, fibre
processing technique, the fineness of the fibre and sample
test-length, which makes accurate predictions of the respec-
tive composite properties difficult. Moreover, natural fibres
Address correspondence to S. M. Sapuan, Department of
Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, Universiti Putra
Malaysia 43400 UPM Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia. E-mail:
sapuan@eng.upm.edu.my
cellulose, hemicelluloses, lignin, and others, and thus they
are not to be considered in the same, straightforward
way as monofilament fibres[3].
Sugar palm or Arenga pinnata fibre is a potential source
of natural fibre from the sugar palm plant, a member of
Palmae family. This plant commonly grows in the tropical
regions like the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. It is
naturally a forest species. The full length of the trunk of
a sugar palm tree is completely covered by black fibre. This
black fibre can be used many ways: brooms, paintbrushs,
septic tank base filters, clear water filters, doormats,
carpets, ropes, chair=sofa cushions, and as a fish nest to
hatch its eggs[4]. In certain region, traditional application
of ijuk includes handcraft for kupiah (Acehnese typical
headgear used in prayer) and roofing for traditional houses
in Mandailing, North Sumatera.
The main issue in the use of natural fibre composite is
the fibre matrix adhesion. The function of the matrix is
to transfer the load to the stiff fibres through shear stresses
at the interface. This can be achieved if a sufficient bonding
between the matrix and the fibres in ensured. Insufficient
interfacial bonding at the interface caused their advantages
cannot be fully utilized and it is exposed to environmental
attacks. Poor adhesion between hydrophobic polymers and
hydrophilic fibres gives poor properties of composites.
These properties can be improved by physical treatments
(cold plasma treatment, and corona treatment) and chemi-
cal treatment (maleic anhydride, organosilanes, isocya-
nates, sodium hydroxide, permanganate and peroxide)[5].
Rowell[6] gave the considerations for the selection of fibre
chemical treatment such as it must be able to react with
hydroxyl groups, the toxicity, easy to remove after treat-
ment, low boiling point liquid, effective at low temperature,
and cost. Alkali treatment is also an alternative, as many
times these chemicals swell the cell wall matrix structure
and give better penetration.
The mechanical properties and morphological aspects of
sugar palm fibre-reinforced epoxy composites have been

379
 380 D. BACHTIAR ET AL.
studied[7–9]. Study of mechanical properties of sugar palm
fibre reinforced epoxy composites gave promising results.
The results of flexural strength test of sugar palm fibre-
reinforced epoxy composites indicated that the 10 wt.%
woven roving fibre has the highest value compared to other
fibre contents and arrangements. The work of Siregar[10]
has shown that using sugar palm fibres as a reinforcement
agent for the epoxy matrix has provided a new form of
composite with good strength and rigidity.
Suriani et al.[9] examined the study of interfacial adhe-
sion of tensile specimens of sugar palm fibre reinforced
epoxy composites. The composite specimens of these com-
posites were prepared at various fibre weights of 10%, 15%
and 20% with different fibre orientations such as woven
roving, long random and chopped random. Interfacial
adhesion study of tensile strength specimens reveals that
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the woven roving fibre composites gave good interface
adhesion between the fibre and the matrix as compared
to long random and chopped random fibre-reinforced
epoxy composites.
The impact property of a material is its capacity to
absorb and dissipate energies under impact or shock load-
ing. The impact energy level of the composites depends
upon several factors such as nature of the component, geo-
metry, fiber arrangement and fiber matrix interface. The
matrix fracture fiber matrix de-bonding and fiber pullout
are important failure modes observed in the fiber compo-
sites due to impact loading. The load is transferred through
shear, and when the shear force exceeds the fiber matrix
interaction force, the fiber matrix de-bonding takes place.
Fiber fracture will be predominating when the stress level
exceeds the fiber stress, and then the fractured fibers are
pulled out from the matrix.
Leman et al.[11] have examined the impact properties of
sugar palm fibre-reinforced epoxy composites. The epoxy
resin was impregnated with the long and chopped fibre
separately in an open mould and then compressed to
obtain the desired thickness. Impact strengths of the
fibre-reinforced composites improved from 28.8 J=m (with-
out reinforcement) to 67.26 J=m (chopped) and 114.27 J=m
(long).
However, none of the earlier studies looked into the
effect of alkaline fibre treatment of sugar palm fibre on
the impact properties of the composites. Therefore this
paper presents the study of impact behavior of the alkali-
treated sugar palm reinforced epoxy composites.
MATERIALS AND METHOD
The preparation of Arenga pinnata epoxy composite
plate fabrication based on one type volume fraction, i.e.,
10%, two types the concentration of solution, i.e., 0.25 M
and 0.5 M, and three types of soaking time, i.e., 1 hour, 4
hours, and 8 hours. The fabricating composite plate was
produced by hand lay-up process and was cut to form a
specimen to determine its impact properties.
The sugar palm fibre was collected from Banda Aceh,
Indonesia and retting process was applied in order to sepa-
rate the stalk from the core of fibre. In this process, bundles
of sugar palm fibre were soaked into water tank until the
dirt vanished from the core section and the stalk was sepa-
rated from the core. The sugar palm fiber stalks were occa-
sionally stirred to facilitate the separation process. Water
was changed several times in order to reduce the dirt
resulted from the retting process. Before using the sugar
palm fiber, it was dried for about 2 weeks under the room
temperature.
The alkali treatment was conducted with concentration
of 0.25 M and 0.5 M NaOH, at 3 different soaking times
namely 60 minutes, 4 hours and 8 hours. These variations
were made to optimize the treatment parameter. The con-
centrations were ensured by the addition of water at certain
percentages of the original NaOH (1 M). Sugar palm fibres
were immersed in NaOH solution at various concentra-
tions and soaking times, and after that they were rinsed
with distilled water until the rinsed solution reached neutral
(pH 7). Then, fibres were dried at room temperature for
4 days.
The SEM analysis was conducted to exercise the micro-
graphics of the surface fiber on the untreated and treated
surface fibers. The experiments were conducted at Micro-
scopy and Microanalysis Unit, laboratory of Enzyme and
Microbial Technology, Institute of Bioscience, Universiti
Putra Malaysia.
The sugar palm epoxy composites board was cut
into test sample (five specimens for each type of fibre
model were tested). The cutting process was made
using handsaw. The dimension of the specimen used
to carry out test was adapted from ASTM D256[12]
for Izod Impact testing. All these tests were carried
at for untreated and treated sugar palm fibre-
reinforced epoxy composites.
The Izod impact test was carried out on notched
samples of dimensions 63.5
12.7
3.2 mm using a TMI
pendulum tester (see Figure 2). The velocity of the striking
nose at the moment of impact was 3.46 m=s. The pendulum
energy employed for testing purpose was 5 Joule.
The impact strength was calculated from the following
equation,
J
E¼ ð1Þ
t
where E ¼ impact strength, J=m, J ¼ value from machine,
J, and t ¼ thickness, m.
In this research, the thickness t, or the distance from
notch to end side the specimen is 10 mm (0.1 m).
 SUGAR PALM FIBRE-REINFORCED EPOXY COMPOSITES
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
SEM Micrograph of Sugar Palm Fibre Surface
The results of micrographics visual of the untreated and
treated surface fibers are shown in Figure 3. Scanning elec-
tron microscopy gives an excellent method for examining
the surface morphology of untreated and treated sugar
palm fibers. It is expected that the surface morphology of
untreated fibers will be different to that of treated fibers,
particularly in terms of their level of smoothness and
roughness.
Figure 1(a) shows the SEM micrograph of an untreated
sugar palm fiber. Clearly, the impurities were observed on
the surface of the untreated fiber. On the other hand,
Figure 1(b) shows sugar palm fibers after treatment with
0.25 M NaOH that was soaked for 1 hour. The surface
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shows some impurities have been removed from the fiber
and also shows some scrapes along the surface. It indicates
that the treatment was good enough to effectively remove
the impurities from the sugar palm fiber surface. In both
FIG. 1. The SEM micrograph of (a) untreated sugar palm fiber and
(b) treated sugar palm fiber in 0.25 M NaOH with 1-hr soaking time
(c) treated sugar palm fiber in 0.25 M NaOH with 4-hr soaking time and
(d) treated sugar palm fiber in 0.25 M NaOH with 8-hr soaking time.
(e) treated sugar palm fiber in 0.5 M NaOH with 1-hr soaking time and
(f) treated sugar palm fiber in 0.5 M NaOH with 8-hr soaking time.
381
figures, the different views of the surface were seen and it
indicated that this difference is because of the effect of
the treatment.
Figure 1(c) and (d) shows the SEM micrograph of sugar
palm fiber treated with 0.25 M NaOH at the different of
soaking times for 4 hr and 8 hr, respectively. In the figure,
it is shown that there are some changes of surface from
(c) to (d). In (d) it experienced the absence of impurities,
and if we compared it to the untreated fiber, Figure 1(c)
and (d) provides the evidence that treated surfaces are
cleaner but looked jagged and one can feel that they are
rougher when touched.
Furthermore, Figure 1(e) and (f) provides the SEM
micrograph of sugar palm fiber treated with 0.5 M NaOH
at different of soaking times for 1 hr and 8 hr, respectively.
This figure also shows that the treated surfaces are cleaner
and rougher when touched than the untreated sugar palm
fiber. This phenomenon contributes to the mechanical
performance of the composites. Physically, the occurrences
of rough surface giving the mechanical lock between
the fibre surface with the matrix and it maybe enhances
the interfacial bonding between them.
The Impact Properties
The impact strength is the energy required to break
specimens in which there is a v-notch to create an initial
stress point. The results of impact testing of sugar palm
fibre reinforced epoxy composite were shown in Table 1.
The complete results for the impact properties of sugar
palm composite cover the untreated specimens and the
alkali treated specimens with different concentrations and
soaking times.
Figure 2 shows the izod impact strength results in
graphic form to more understanding the interpretation of
the data clearly. The sugar palm composites tested
displayed low impact strengths for 1 hour soaking time
treatment compared to untreated composites. However,
the composites start to improve the impact strength for
the 4-hr and 8-hr soaking time treatments. This phenom-
enon was showed in the similar trend for both 0.25 M
NaOH and 0.5 M NaOH solution concentrations.
It is well known that the impact response of fibre com-
posites is highly influenced by the interfacial bond strength,
the matrix and fibre properties[5]. Impact energy is dissi-
pated by debonding, fibre and=or matrix fracture and fibre
pull-out. Fibre fracture dissipates less energy compared to
fibre pull-out. The former is common in composites with
strong interfacial bond while the occurrence of the latter
is sign of a weak bond.
The treatment during 1-hr soaking time giving less
impact strength compared to untreated composites may
be due to the weak bonding between fibre and matrix.
The treatment process during 1 hr for both 0.25 M NaOH
and 0.5 M NaOH gives lower impact strength than the
 382 D. BACHTIAR ET AL.

TABLE 1
The impact properties of sugar palm epoxy composites
Work of Fracture (J=m)
No. Type 1 2 3 4 5 Mean S.D
1 No-treatment 36.7 72.1 34.8 47.8 42.2 46.72 13.48
2 0.25 M=1 hr. 33 34.8 36.7 36.7 34.8 35.2 1.39
3 0.25 M=4 hrs. 44.1 29.3 36.7 40.4 38.5 37.8 4.91
4 0.25 M=8 hrs. 55.2 51.5 60.8 38.5 44.1 50.02 7.91
5 0.5 M=1 hr. 34.8 40.4 42.2 44.1 42.2 40.74 3.19
6 0.5 M=4 hrs. 57.1 49.6 44.1 53.4 42.2 49.28 5.57
7 0.5 M=8 hrs. 66.4 49.6 59 75.8 49.6 60.08 10.08
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untreated composites. The rational explanation for this
phenomenon is the occurrence of something changing on
the composites as the effect of alkaline treatment. The
alkali treatment removes the lignin and hemicellulose,
and the interfibrillar region is likely to be less dense and less
rigid[13]. Thus, the softening of the inter-fibrillar matrix
adversely affects the stress transfer between the fibrils,
and thereby less dissipated energy with impact loading on
the composites.
The improving impact strength emerges while the treat-
ment is gradually changed. For the 4-hr and 8-hr soaking
times, the impact strength of composites are gradually
increase to the ultimate value. And the same trend also
occurred at both solution concentrations, 0.25 M NaOH
and 0.5 M NaOH, respectively. As lignin is gradually
removed, the middle lamella joining the ultimate cells is
expected to be more plastic and homogeneous, owing to
the gradual elimination of microvoids. Removing the lignin
and hemicellulose leads to better packing of cellulose
chains and gives increasing crystallinity. It contributes to
the toughness of the material composites.
The strong alkali treatment influence the interfacial
bonding characteristics while the chemical removal of
cementing material facilitate exposure of OH groups on
the fibre surface, thus enabling better bonding between
the fibre and matrix.
Figure 3 represents the comparison impact strength
between composites with 0.25 M NaOH treatment and
0.5 M NaOH treatment. It shows the dominant impact
strength of the 0.5 M NaOH treatment compared to the
impact strength of composites with the 0.25 M NaOH
treatment. It proves that the higher concentration of alkali
solution gives better impact performance for the compo-
sites. It may be due to the good interfacial bonding between
the fibre and matrix as the effect of the strong alkali
solution on the surface of the fibres. This result is con-
firmed by SEM Analysis (Figure 1), that shows the rougher
surface for the fibre with the high concentration solution

FIG. 2. The impact strength of alkali-treated and untreated sugar palm FIG. 3. The impact strength of untreated and alkali-treated sugar palm
reinforced epoxy composites. fibre reinforced epoxy composites vs. soaking time.
 SUGAR PALM FIBRE-REINFORCED EPOXY COMPOSITES
treatment. The maximum impact strength is 60.08 J=m with
improving by 12.85% from untreated composite.
CONCLUSIONS
From the above study the following conclusions may be
drawn: The impact strength of the alkali-treated compo-
sites decrease with 1-hr soaking time, but showed an
increase beyond 1-hr soaking time. The alkaline treatment
gives the change on the fibre surface and enhances the
interfacial bonding berween fibre and matrix, thus contri-
bute to the composite capability to dissipate the energy
when the Izod impact testing is done.
The ultimate impact strength of treated sugar palm
fiber-reinforced epoxy composite took place at 0.5 M
NaOH solution with 8 hours soaking time, i.e., 60 J=m
with improving by 12.85% from untreated composite.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank Mr. Faizal, laboratory
technician at Laboratory of Agriculture and Food
Engineering, Universiti Putra Malaysia for his support
during conducting the tests. The authors wish to thank
National Science Centre, Malaysia and Ministry of
Science, Technology and Innovation, Malaysia (Science-
Fund) for partially funding this research.
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