Avaliação mecânica de compósitos de resina poliéster reforçada com fibras longas de babaçu antes e após a Mercerização

Abstract

The search for environmentally friendly materials, to minimize environmental problems has become a major concern in recent years. The use of natural fibers as a substitute for various reinforcement synthetic or mineral fillers in polymer composites has shown a great potential for technological application. This work aims to develop a composite using polyester resin reinforced with long fibers coming from the casing of the babaçu. Composite plates were prepared with different weights of fibrous mass reinforcement to study the mechanical properties in tension and bending according to ASTM D-3039 and D-790, norms respectively. It was carried out an alkaline treatment of fibers known a 50 g fiber mass weight mercerization, since this was considered the critical volume, due to present the best results in tension and bending tests. The concentrations of NaOH were varied from 2.5 to 10 % and the gradient time was kept constant and used the period of 1 hour. Changes in surface morphology of the fibers were evaluated by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The results show that the long-fiber casing of the babaçu palm has great potential as reinforcement in polyester resin, and showed no significant improvement in mechanical properties after mercerization.