DefinePK

Abstract

With the promoting of sustainable material usage, natural fibres such as kenaf has gained recognition as a reinforcing materials. But natural fibres are generally weaker than synthetic fibres and the porosity of the fibres make them grow weaker as time passes. As such, to counter the weakness of the natural fibre, the addition of hydrophilic silica nanoparticles is studied. Silica nanoparticle is a material with high surface area contributing to its high interfacial interaction with the matrix resulting in the improvement of the matrix. In this work, the composites were fabricated via vacuum infusion process by creating a system in which the compressed randomly orientated kenaf mat are laid in. The silica nanoparticles are dispersed into the epoxy using a homogenizer at 3000 rpm for 10 minutes before being infused into the fibres. With the inclusion of 1 vol% silica nanoparticles, even though most composite had a decreased strength, the composite with 60 vol% kenaf had shown an increment in strength at 27% making it kenaf reinforced epoxy with the highest flexural strength and modulus.