Development of natural fibre reinforced poly(lactic acid) biocomposites

In our work, different natural fiber reinforced PLA biocomposites were prepared by film - stacking. The effect of the fiber reinforcement and the compression molding pressure on the mechanical properties were analyzed and it was found that, the tensile and flexural strength and modulus of neat Poly(Lactic Acid) (PLA) increased by using 30wt% natural fibre reinforcement up to 80 - 90 MPa and 7 GPa respectively. The investigation of the mechanical properties of the biocomposites revealed that the pressing parameters have significant effect, due to the increased pressure and the 4 step method further improvements were reache d with a flexural strength of 110 MPa and a flexural modulus of 11,4 GPa. The best combination of the tensile and flexural properties was reached with PLA/Flax126 composites