Construction of high-strength aligned bamboo fibre/high density polyethylene composites

Herein, a facile strategy was utilized to produce high-strength composites with the combination of aligned bamboo fibres (BF) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) without artificial alignment. It involved the use of gamma-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (KH-550) surface-modified bamboo fibres (K-BF) as a high-strength skeleton and the high-density polyethylene (HDPE) as the adhesive, followed by hot-pressing. The hot-pressing process enabled the composites with high filling content of K-BF which confirmed its favorable mechanical performance and the potential large-scale production. As a result, the developed K-BF/HDPE composites exhibited high flexural properties and thermal stability. The flexural strength and modulus of the material were significantly improved, with 5 times and 11 times higher than those of neat HDPE, respectively. These results indicated that KH-550 modification facilitated the strong compatibility between HDPE and BF skeleton. We believe that this strategy may expand the utilization of aligned bamboo fibres in developing strong engineering composites in the field of building and automotive industry.