Photocuring of Empty Fruit Bunches of Oil Palm (Elaeis guineensis) Fibers with Allyl Methacrylate (AMA): Effect of Additives on Mechanical and Degradable Properties

Empty fruit bunches of oil palm fibers can be used as environmentally friendly alternatives to conventional reinforcing fibers, like glass, carbon, etc. In order to improve the interfacial properties, this fiber was subjected to grafting with bulk monomer allyl methacrylate (AMA) and cured under UV radiation. It was found that UV curing enhanced the physicomechanical properties to a large extent compared to the untreated virgin fiber. Among different AMA concentration, the fibers treated with 10% monomer showed the best mechanical properties after 15 passes of UV radiation. Different additives such as urea, acrylamide, and NVP were added with the 10% AMA solution, and the effect of additives was studied. It was found that fibers treated with 2% urea showed even better PL and tensile properties than those treated only with AMA. the treated and untreated fiber samples were also subjected to various weather conditions such as simulating weather, soil, and water aging to determine the degradable properties. It was observed that the minimum loss in each case was shown by the sample treated with the formulations that contain urea as additives with AMA and that fiber aged in soil showed higher loss of weight and tensile properties than that aged in water.