Track: Undergraduate Student Paper Competition

Abstract

Natural fiber composites are expected to be in high demand in the coming years as consumer
awareness grows about the importance of reducing waste and pollution. The primary goals of
this work to know the mechanical properties of chemically extracted bagasse fibers. Bagasse
fibers are manually extracted following different extraction processes from the sugarcane residue collected from the sugarcane juice producing vendors. Collected bagasse residue are first washed
in the clean water then dried under the sun for 72 hours. Extracted fibers are treated with alkali
(1% NaOH) solution to improve the mechanical properties of the fibers. Four different types of
duration (11 hours,12 hours,14 hours,15 hours) fiber were exerted using combing operation.
The fibers were tested under a universal tensile testing machine and the diameter of the fibers
was calculated using images obtained in an optical microscope. Chemically extracted fibers
showed better mechanical properties than manually extracted fiber. It's speculated that, diameter
variation among fibers and within fibers will be less and this could improve fiber mechanical
properties.

Keywords: bagasse fiber; mechanical properties; scanning electron microscopy