Studies on mechanical, thermal, and water immersion of plant and animal wastage nanofiller–based bio-fiber-reinforced composites

Bio-composites are a group of composite materials that use polymer as the matrix and fiber as reinforcement for the matrix. Due to their unique synergistic multifunction through incorporation of multiple components into one compatible entity, they have found broad applications in electronic, magnetic, optical, and electrochromic. Existing works do not focus on use of natural fiber reinforcement along with natural nanofillers. The goal of this study is to find and evaluate the properties of bio-nanocomposites made using different combinations of jute and flax fiber mat as reinforcement, epoxy as matrix, and coconut shell powder and eggshell powder as nanofiller. Jute-reinforced nanocomposites were found to absorb more water than other nanocomposite samples. It also had higher surface roughness than other nanocomposites with jute/epoxy/coconut shell having highest surface roughness of 0.08. Jute/epoxy/eggshell had the highest tensile strength, Young’s modulus, and elongation at break of 34.3291 MPa, 782.5489 MPa, and 4.3885% respectively. Flexural strength was highest for jute/epoxy/coconut shell at 32.3690 MPa. Impact strength was also highest for jute/epoxy/coconut shell at 8.9 kJ/m 2 . From the SEM analysis, it was found that jute showed minimum debonding with matrix phase due to rough surface and better wettability with matrix phase which provided better strength than flax fiber hence it performed better in mechanical testing. Thus, it was found that jute fiber provided better strength to the nanocomposite along with coconut shell powder making it a slightly better alternative than the other nanocomposite sample.