Effects of alkali and steaming on mechanical

properties of snake fruit (Salacca) fiber

Cite as: AIP Conference Proceedings 1788, 030060 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4968313
Published Online: 03 January 2017

Seno Darmanto, Heru S. B. Rochardjo, Jamasri, and Ragil Widyorini

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AIP Conference Proceedings 1788, 030060 (2017); https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4968313 1788, 030060

© 2016 Author(s).
 Effects of Alkali and Steaming on Mechanical Properties
of Snake Fruit (Salacca) Fiber
Seno Darmanto1, 3, a), Heru SB Rochardjo2, b), Jamasri2, c) and Ragil Widyorini4, d)
1
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Faculty of Engineering
Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
2
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Faculty of Engineering
3
Department of Industrial Engineering, Vocation School, Universitas Diponegoro
4
Faculty of Forestry, Universitas GadjahMada, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
a)
Corresponding author: senodarmanto@gmail.com
b)
heru-sbr@ugm.ac.id
c)
jamasri@ugm.ac.id
d)
rwidyorini@gmail.com

Abstract. The aim of this research is to investigate the effect of alkali treatment and steaming on mechanical properties
of Snake Fruit frond fiber. The presence of surface impurities and a lot of hydroxyl groups makes natural fiber less
compatible for composite materials reinforcement. Efforts to remove the impurities can be done by physical, chemical
and mechanical treatments. This paper reports the treatment of Snake Fruit frond single fiber by subjecting it to alkali
treatments with 2%- 8% NaOH for 2 - 6 hours at room temperature. The treatment is then followed by steaming at a
pressure of 2 bars in 1 hour. Results show that the treatment of alkali and the alkali-steaming combination can increase
cellulose percentage. The tensile tests show that this type of treatment in combination resulted in the higher tensile
strength compared to untreated fiber. There is a significant increase in tensile strength with increasing alkali percentage.
However, the further increase in the percentage of alkali solution will result in decreasing tensile strength. The highest
value of tensile strength after treatment was 275 MPa with 6 hours treatment at alkali percentage of 2 %.

INTRODUCTION
Snake Fruit (Salacca Zalacca) is a fruit plant that spread in almost all provinces in Indonesia. Besides relying on
fruit, profits potentially can also be a breakdown from another part of this crop include seeds, skins, and frond.
Frond of Snake Fruit is just solid waste in agricultural and has a great chance as natural fiber resources. Some
researchers classify six basic types of natural fibers as follows: bast fibers, leaf fibers, seed fibers, core fibers, grass
and reed fibers and all other types (wood and roots) [1-2]. Refer to a basic type, frond of Snake Fruit is a branch of
leaf fiber; its form approaches wood. It has a good character like solid, stiff, strong and suitable for automotive
industry.
There are many advantages of using natural fibers in the automotive application include renewable, sustainable,
recyclable, weight savings, low cost, and abundant supply[2]. Application of natural cellulosic fibers is reinforced
thermosetting polymer composites also offers many advantages in the preparation of natural fibers, such as easy
processing, less temperature, self-made or simple low-cost system, low pressure, easily wet and higher loading [3].
However, natural fibers also have disadvantages, for example, inhomogeneous quality and supply cycles, poor water
resistance and dimensional stability (swelling) [4]. The main difficulties of natural fibers in reinforcement to
composites are the lowly compatibility between fiber and matrix and their relative high moisture absorption [1].
These show a major restriction on the successful use of natural fibers in durable composites not necessarily limited
to interior and non-structural applications.

International Conference on Engineering, Science and Nanotechnology 2016 (ICESNANO 2016)

AIP Conf. Proc. 1788, 030060-1–030060-6; doi: 10.1063/1.4968313
Published by AIP Publishing. 978-0-7354-1452-5/$30.00

030060-1
 Modifications of natural fiber have to be considered in transforming the fiber surface properties to improve their
properties such as stability, high moisture absorption, low adhesion with different matrices. The modifications of
fiber are classified to physical and chemical [1, 5]. Some physical treatments of fiber were done by stretching,
calendaring, thermo-treatment [1], and steaming [6]. Then chemical treatments were prepared by alkali [7-10],
silane [1, 5, 7, 11], benzoylation [7], acrylation and acrylonitrile grafting, compleated coupling agents,
permanganate, peroxide, isocyanate, stearic acid, sodium chlorite, triazine, fatty acid derivate (oleoyl chloride) and
fungal [12]. Some researchers also upgrade the physical and chemical treatment by combining with ultrasonic [13],
steaming [6], steam explosion [8, 14, 15], high-pressure homogenizer [16] and another method.
Treatment of natural fiber is usually done to few goals such as: refining, modifying of mechanical properties,
forming and production. The refining of natural fiber can use by steaming or chemical treatments. Steaming
treatment declines the lignin bonds between the cellulosic fibers[14, 17, 18]. As a result, fibers are more readily
separated. Chemical treatments, usually alkali, are also used to reduce the lignin bonds[14, 17, 18]. Steam pre-
treatment at a pressure of 137 Pa (20 lbs) for 1 hr is performed by loading the lignocellulose material directly into
the steam gun [14]. Submersing fibers in alkaline solution prior steaming for 180 s at 220-500 ºC lead to complete
solubilization of the non-cellulosic components [19]. Although treatments show enhancement of fiber properties and
reduce energy requirements, they may also decrease yield and modify the fiber chemistry [17-18]. Efforts still are
needed to increase the natural fiber performance. In this paper, the chemical treated Snake Fruit frond fiber was
further treated physically through a steaming process to get better performance.

MATERIAL AND METHOD

Material
The main material is prepared consisting of the pondoh type Snake Fruit frond, NaOH and distilled water.
Further, there are several tools used in the study including fiber processing, early treatment, physical treatment,
chemical treatment and the manufacture of the specimen. Fiber processing equipment consists of saws, knives,
scissors, coarse steel brushes, smooth steel brushes, rolling and dryer. Then physical treatment apparatus includes a
stainless steel pan, square-shaped glass vessels of various sizes, heating, and steaming. Then the equipment for the
chemical treatment includes a saw, beaker glass, measuring cup, square-shaped glass vessels of various sizes, glass
bowl, a small pan, stirrer, heater and temperature measuring devices. Furthermore, equipment for making specimens
consists of cardboard, scissors, knives, steel ruler, and adhesives.

Fibrillated and Purifying Method

First, the Snake Fruit frond is broken down into a single fiber. Single fiber fibrillation was done through several
stages of work includes the selection frond, cutting to size 50 cm, cleavage, soaking, drying, brushing and the
separation of a single fiber to the other components. After soaking with distilled water and forced drying in an oven,
the fiber then has been steamed at a pressure of 1 bar for 60 minutes.
The mechanism of alkali treatment was performed through several stages including the preparation of fiber, the
preparation of sodium hydroxide solution, dipping the fiber during 2 hours and 6 hours, forced drying of the fiber
and fiber storage. The fiber then was steamed up to a single fiber by passing the saturated vapor pressure at 2 bars
and hold for 60 minutes.

Chemical Analysis
The composition of single fiber was tested by standard gravimetric to examine the effect of treatment on the
content of cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin. The arrangement of a single fiber in another literature is noted on the
content of cellulose, hollocellulose, and lignin where hollo celluloses is a sum of cellulose andhemicellulose.

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 Mechanical Testing
The single fiber of Snake Fruit frond has then tested the strength. Each variation in treatments of the tensile test
specimens was prepared with five specimens as shown in Fig. 1. The tensile test specimens and method refer to the
ASTM standard D3379.

(a) (b)

(c) (d)
FIGURE 1. Some research stages of Snake Fruit frond (a) pure Snake Fruit frond fiber, (b) submersion in a solution of sodium
hydroxide, (c) single fiber after steaming, (d) tensile test specimens.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Fibrillation of Snake Fruit frond has produced single fibers with a beige color and micrometer scale in
dimension. Further treatment with water immersion, resulted from the single fiber tends to turn into a light brown
color as seen in Fig. 2. Next, chemical treatment with alkali (sodium hydroxyl) also produces fibers with light brown
color and relatively contrasts with the results of treatment with steaming which produce dark brown color. The color
change indicates that there is a change in the surface structure of the fiber after the treatments. Increasing the
concentration of alkali in the treatment shows an increase in strength of the color difference [20].
Table 1 shows chemical composition of pure Snake Fruit frond single fiber before and after treatment. The
percentage of alpha-cellulose increased when treating the alkali and alkaline followed by steaming. This fact was
also reported by Abraham et al.[14] who noted that there is an increase in the percentage of alpha-cellulose fiber jute
which is treated steaming followed by the release of steam quickly. Deepa et al. [21] also strengthen the statement
that percentage of alpha-cellulose will rise treated each alkali and steaming followed by the release of steam quickly.
As seen in Fig. 3, the investigation of the fiber using FTIR analysis shows that there is no basic change in the
compositions of the fiber. It means that there is no principle change in the contents of the fiber. The change only
happens on the intensity of each group. Refer to the Table 1. It is clearly seen that the change is by the percentage
variations.

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 (a) (b)

(c) (d)
FIGURE 2. Changes in the color of the fiber in some treatments: (a) pure Snake Fruit frond single fiber, (b) immersion fiber in
water, (c) alkali treatment on a single fiber, (d) alkali and steaming treatment on a single fiber.

TABLE 1. Composition of pure single fiber, after the alkali treatment and steaming
Treatment Alfa_cellulose Holocellulose Lignin
(%) (%) (%)
Pure fiber 47,18 79,07 22,27
Alkali 3% 51,50 74,09 31,49
Alkali 3% + steaming 54,53 73,36 26,33

25

20 SA2T6S

15
SA0T0
Transmittance (%)

10 SA2T6

-
4.000 3.750 3.500 3.250 3.000 2.750 2.500 2.250 2.000 1.750 1.500 1.250 1.000 750 500
Wave length (1/cm)
SA0T0 SA2T6 SA2T6S

FIGURE 3. FTIR spectra of Snake Fruit frond

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 The SEM photomicrograph, as seen in Fig. 4(a) and Fig. 4(b), shows that the steaming treatment breaks the
bonding of the fiber with other material as shown by the clearer border between each fiber layer. The broken parts of
this fiber, which likely to be other than cellulose parts, will be removed away during washing, resulted in the
increase in Alfa cellulose percentage as presented in Table 1.

(a) (b)
FIGURE 4. SEM of (a) pure fiber and (b) treated fiber on 2% of alkali during 6 hours and steaming

During the chemical treatments, the variation in alkali content affects the mechanical properties of the fiber. It
was noted that increasing alkali contents of the solution are not always increasing the fiber tensile strength. As
shown in Fig. 5, the strength increases with increasing alkali contents until 2% of alkali contents. However, a further
increase in alkali contents results in decreasing tensile strength. Therefore the percentage of 2% is the optimum
value for this case. The tensile strength, starting from 160 MPa before treated, increases as high as 275 MPa with the
treatments. The soaking time also influences the tensile strength. As shown in Fig. 3, the treatment in 6 hours gives a
higher strength compared to that of 2 hours.

FIGURE 5. Tensile strength vs alkali percentage

The influences of alkali treatment at ambient and elevated temperatures and alkali-steam treatment on the tensile
strength of jute fibers show that the uniaxial tensile strength increased by up to 65% for alkali-steam treatment. The
elongation at break also results in an increase of 38% that indicates that the treated fibers retained their flexibility.
Physico-chemical characterization of fibers shows that the increase in tensile strength is due to the removal of non-
cellulosic matters like lignin, pectin, and hemicellulose [22].The same treatment, alkali-steaming, on the bark of
cotton stalks had resulted in highest mechanical properties, stability to water, smallest diameters and lowest content
of non-cellulose impurities, best adhesion between PP matrix [23]. Modification of ramie fiber by mild steam
treatment showed an effective method to enhance mechanical properties where tensile strength was similar to those
of 4% chitosan-coated fibers, but it was higher than those of the untreated fibers [6].

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 CONCLUSION
Some treatments that consist of physical and chemical methods for reducing impurities of Snake Fruit fiber have
been performed. Snake Fruit frond single fiber that subjected alkali treatments results in increasing cellulose
contents. Further treatment with steaming results further increases in cellulose contents. Variations in alkali contents
and treatment time during chemical treatment results in a different fiber strength. The highest tensile strength was
275 MPa. It is found at Snake Fruit frond fiber immersed in 2% NaOH for 6 hours followed by steaming.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This work has been supported by funding of Hibah Tim Pasca Sarjana, DRM Kemenristek Dikti, support for a
national researcher at Universitas Gadjah Mada. The authors are grateful to the staff of Laboratory of Material and
PAU, UniversitasGadjah Mada.

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