Study of Grewia Optiva Fiber Reinforced Urea-Formaldehyde Composites

In the present communication a study on the synthesis of Grewia Optiva fiber (G.O.) reinforced biocomposites using Urea-Formaldehyde (UF) as a novel polymer matrix through compression molding technique has been reported. The UF resin was prepared by the standard method. Initially the optimization of Urea-Formaldehyde (UF) resin thus synthesized was done in terms of evaluating its mechanical properties. Subsequently the optimized UF resin was reinforced with Grewia Optiva fiber to prepare biocomposites. This was followed by studying the effect of fiber loading (in terms of weight) on mechanical properties like tensile strength, compressive strength, flexural strength and wear resistance etc. It has been observed that mechanical properties increase with increase in fiber loading up to 30% loading and beyond this loading these properties decreases. The composites we re also subjected to morphological (SEM) and thermal (TGA/DTA) analyses.