A comparative study on the creep behaviour of ozone treated jute fabric/epoxy composites filled with ozonized and pulverized plant fibres

Abstract

The present study deals with the ozone treatment of natural fibres with varying cellulosic contents. The main advantages of performing ozone treatment of cellulosic materials are that it reduces the usage of water, energy and time, since it can physically bleach the cellulosic materials without the need for these essential resources. Also, ozonisation limits the harmful impact on our ecology, basically the chemical oxygen demand values, of the various processes. In addition, ozone treatment is also practiced in the field of natural composites, medical sectors, and in other textile processing areas. In addition, we have mentioned about an industrially scalable machine i.e., ball milling machine required to produce particles from such fibres. This machine can produce sufficient quantity of particles in a quite reasonable amount of time. Furthermore, we have also observed that by ozonising the fibres, makes them more prone to breakage due to removal of lignin and other impurities along with a decrease in their surface energy, making them more brittle. After preparation of the particles we have made composites at different particle loadings and compared their properties with neat ozone treated jute fabric composites. Finally, a brief comparison has been made in terms of creep with composites loaded with different natural fibre-based fillers. The results demonstrate that the ozone-treated jute fabric composite reinforced with sisal filler shows better performance compared to the other natural fibre-filled composites.