Study of the diffusion behavior of water vapor sorption in natural fiber composite: Plaster/Rhecktophyllum camerunense

Abstract

The present work focuses on the study of water sorption phenomenon in natural fiber composite (NFC) plaster/Rhecktophyllum camerunense (RC). Indeed, the diffusive behavior of the composite was investigated. The NFC samples were submitted to hygro-thermal ageing in an environmental enclosure of 23%, 54% and 75% relative humidities at 23°C. Periodic gravimetric measurements were achieved on the specimens in order to follow their kinetics adsorption. The results show that the kinetic adsorption is rapid at the first hours no matter the relative humidity and begin saturation after 28 hours. The maximum moisture content increases with the relative humidity. Predictive Fick´s Law was used to modelling experimental data. The curves of all humidities don’t obey to the Fick’s model and the diffusion coefficients have been deduced. We observed that the diffusion coefficient increase with the relative humidity.