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Adhesion of Polymer Spheres to Modified Natural Fibers


EMSL Project ID
25444

Abstract

The technical motivation of the research is to advance current capabilities in natural fiber surface chemistry to develop modification processes that simultaneously displace water within the fiber and introduce desired surface modification. The overall goal is to improve processability and increase durability by enhancing the interfacial polymer-fiber bonding and mechanical properties through minimization of moisture absorption in natural fiber reinforced polymer composites. Ultimately, these functionalized natural fibers will enable lightweight, bio-based, recyclable, energy-saving polymer composite materials for transportation applications.
In order to accurately characterize the polymer-functionalized fiber adhesion, we propose to utilize Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) that incorporates a polymer sphere fixed to a tipless AFM cantilever to measure the adhesive forces on both modified and unmodified bast-based natural fibers. These measurements will be complemented with surface characterization utilizing Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray Photo Spectroscopy (XPS) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). In addition, to examine the structure of the fiber and to expose surfaces of the natural fibers via the removal of the outer layers, a Focused Ion Beam Scanning Electron Microscope (FIB-SEM) will be employed. The measurements proposed herein will quantify the natural fiber surface modification via nano-scale force measurements, the first attempt known to the author that this has been conducted between polymer spheres and natural fibers via AFM.

Project Details

Project type
Large-Scale EMSL Research
Start Date
2007-05-31
End Date
2009-09-30
Status
Closed

Team

Principal Investigator

James Holbery
Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Team Members

Cheng Huang
Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Daniel Howe
Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Mark Engelhard
Institution
Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory

Paul Gassman
Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Bruce Arey
Institution
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

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