Pine cone fiber/clay hybrid composite: Mechanical and thermal properties

This paper deals with the mechanical and thermal properties of clay and pine cone fibers reinforced polypropylene hybrid composite at a total weight percent of 30. To enhance charges wettability within the polymer, a coupling agent was added and a mercerization treatment was carried out to the fibers. Tensile, torsional, hardness tests were conducted for these composites to evaluate the impact of hybrid charges. The tensile properties results indicate that the Young’s modulus has increased for whole systems reaching a gain of 80%, while tensile strength remained stable with the use of both charges. For torsional and hardness characterizations of such hybrid composite, an increase in the torsional resistance is noted with clay addition when hardness properties were in decrease at high clay loading. Thermal degradation decreases with the addition of fibers which is normal with the addition of a low degradation temperature charge.