Investigation of Efficient Alkali Treatment and the Effect of Flame Retardant on the Mechanical and Fire Performance of Frost-Retted Hemp Fiber Reinforced PLA

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Volume Title

A1 Alkuperäisartikkeli tieteellisessä aikakauslehdessä

Date

2022-06-03

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Mcode

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Language

en

Pages

20

Series

Polymers, Volume 14, issue 11

Abstract

This research investigates an effective alkali (NaOH) treatment and fire-retardant coating to produce biocomposites from frost-retted hemp fiber and PLA. The fiber surface treatment with various NaOH concentrations was investigated throughout a range of soaking times. The results show that the extracted non-cellulosic fiber content increases with treatment duration and NaOH concentration, while the fraction of targeted components removed remains nearly unchanged after soaking for 1, 2, and 4 h with a 5 wt.% NaOH solution. At the composite level, the treatment with 5 wt.% NaOH solution for 1 h emerged as the most efficient, with tensile strength, Young’s modulus, flexural strength, and flexural modulus of 89.6 MPa, 9.1 GPa, 121.6 MPa, and 9.6 GPa, respectively, using 30 wt.% fibrous reinforcement. The fire performance of the examined batches of biocomposites improved significantly with the novel fire-retardant (Palonot F1) coating. However, the tensile strength notably decreased, while the flexural properties showed only a slight reduction. In most cases, the biocomposites with the alkali-treated hemp fiber had delayed ignition during the 5 min exposure to the cone heater. The findings in this work contribute to studies that will be required to give design guidelines for sustainable building options.

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Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

alkali treatment, biocomposites, fire behavior, hemp fiber, mechanical properties, thermocompression

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Citation

Alao , P F , Press , R , Kallakas , H , Ruponen , J , Poltimäe , T & Kers , J 2022 , ' Investigation of Efficient Alkali Treatment and the Effect of Flame Retardant on the Mechanical and Fire Performance of Frost-Retted Hemp Fiber Reinforced PLA ' , Polymers , vol. 14 , no. 11 , 2280 . https://doi.org/10.3390/polym14112280