Studies on Natural Fiber reinforced Polymer Matrix Composites

Natural fiber reinforced composites show increasing importance in day to days applications because of their low cost, lightweight, easy availability, non-toxicity, biodegradability and environment friendly nature. But these fibers are hydrophilic in nature. Thus they have very low reactivity and poor compatibility with polymers. To overcome these limitations chemical modifications of the fibers have been carried out. Therefore, in the present work jute fibers have chemically modified by treating with sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solutions. These treated jute fibers have been used to fabricate jute fiber reinforced epoxy composites. Mechanical properties like tensile strength, flexural strength and impact strength have been found out. Alkali treated composites show better properties compare to untreated composites.