Estudo das propriedades mecânicas e térmicas das fibras de bambu antes e após tratamento químico.

Abstract

The interest in environmentally correct technologies has become a major concern, motivated, among many things, by the growth of social and environmental awareness. In this context, vegetable fibers emerge as major candidates, as ecological and economical alternatives to replace synthetic fibers derived from non-renewable sources.The bamboo fibers are perfectly adequate for this trend: they are long, have high strength, ideal for paper manufacturing, food packaging and excellent candidates for enhancement of laminar and structural composites. It is known that the thermal/mechanical behavior is improved when these fibers are subjected to chemical treatment. Thus, the bamboo fibers were subjected to treatment with alkali solution (NaOH), at different concentrations, under controlled temperature (65 -70 ºC). Then the fibers were washed, dried and subjected to tensile tests for verification of their mechanical (elasticity, tensile maximum, Ultimate Tensile Strength and tensile break) and thermal (Thermo gravimetric Analysis) properties. The surface and structural changes were observed by the infrared vibration spectroscopy (FT-IR), X-Ray Diffraction and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The results showed that the fibers after treatment showed the best overall results, increasing the crystalline fraction (110%), the thermal stability (from 315 0C to 338 0C), the modulus of elasticity (30%), and tensile strength (152 %).