Structural Chemistry & Crystallography Communication

Experimental Investigation of Mechanical Properties of Water Hyacinth Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composite

Natural fiber has received wide attention from researchers
all over the world because of their advantages, which
are environmentally friendly and cost-effectiveness.
Among various natural fibers, water hyacinth is one of
the cheapest fibers and the resource used only for animal
feed, organic fertilizer, for making paper, bag, basket,
and tablecloth. The water hyacinth has not been used
so far as reinforcing materials for composites. The goal
of this research work is to fabricate water hyacinth fiber
reinforced polyester composites with a view to characterized
the mechanical properties of water hyacinth fiber reinforced
polyester composite material. The fiber extract
manually after collecting the water hyacinth plant from
Lake Koka in the Oromia Region, Ethiopia. Once the
extraction was done, the fiber treated by a chemical in
different sodium hydroxide concentration, used for the
improvement of bond & interfacial strength of the water
hyacinth fiber and the fiber density were performed using
Pycnometer method by ASTM standard. The composite
of water hyacinth fiber are fabricated with polyester resin,
using hand lay-up methods in different fiber/matrix
ratio and mechanical properties of tensile, flexural, compression
and hardness specimen measured according to
ASTM standard and the prepared composite material
experimentally analyzed. The result showed that water
hyacinth fiber have a lower density comparing with common
natural fiber and all the mechanical properties satisfactorily
improved for chemically treated water hyacinth
fiber polyester composites in comparison with those of
raw water hyacinth fiber polyester composite. Therefore
using water hyacinth fibers as reinforcement in a polymer
matrix successfully develops a composite material.

Author(s):

Samrawit Alemayehu Tewelde

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