The effect of woven oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) filler fiber on the mechanical properties of natural and synthetic rubber

Abstract

Oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) are biomass from palm oil (CPO) processing which can be produced into long lignocellulose and made of yarn as raw material for woven textiles for sandwich biocomposite applications. The purpose of this study was to obtain a biocomposite sandwich variation of natural rubber, butyl, and silicone reinforced with OPEFB woven fibers at optimum filler concentration by studying mechanical properties. The biocomposite of rubber sandwiches with OPEFB fiber reinforced with concentrations of 14, 20, and 28 sheets with a size of 10 x 10 x 1 cm. The methodology used was layered printing with constant pressure and heat using a hot press. The best fiber concentration based on mechanical properties was a composite with a fiber concentration of 28 sheets on 70 shore A hardness natural rubber. This was because the fibers in the composite functioned as load bearers, where this containment was carried out by the distribution of stress. The more fiber concentration, the more effective and uniform distribution of stresses will be, so that an increase in the mechanical properties of the composite occurs. The mechanical properties of rubber have been shown to increase with the addition of fiber as a reinforcing material, the ratio of the impact strength of rubber (control) and fiber-reinforced rubber was lower than that of fiber-reinforced rubber. The natural rubber had an impact strength of 48 kJ/m2, while natural rubber with fiber reinforcement had a higher impact strength value of 321.40 kJ/m2.