Effect of alkaline treatment on the tensile properties of oil palm empty fruit bunch (OPEFB) fibre

Abstract

The use of oil palm empty fruit bunch has gained worldwide attention and acceptance among the researchers as eco-friendly materials. Hence, oil palm trees has been one the most flourishing and fruitful economic trees in the West Africa and beyond. OPEFB is nothing but a waste material obtained after the extraction of palm fruits. In other to process OPEFB, the fruits are stripped from the bunches leaving the empty bunches as rejects/waste materials. These waste materials, are usually abandoned or dumped in the oil mill industrial site which has created a lot of environmental degradations or implications such as soil acidification, air pollution and others which are harmful to man and his natural environment. It was also observed that the measurement of the tensile properties of fibres enhances the proper utilization as well as the mechanical   strength of the fibre strands/bundle. Therefore, this paper addressed the effect of using the following concentrations of NaOH 7%, 10%, 15% and 17% on the mechanical properties of OPEFB fibres with time variations of 24hrs, 72hrs and 120hrs. Finally, the test was performed using D1445 in accordance with ASTM standard which selects 15%w/v of NaOH as the optimized concentrations after 120hrs. Therefore, it was observed that the treatment of OPEFB fibre at 15%w/v of NaOH at 120hrs improves the fibre most when compared with the result of untreated fibres and other treatments and their time variations.  The so-called waste can be utilized in the reinforcement of soils thereby converting waste to wealth for the benefit of mankind. In other words, the treated material is competent enough to serve as reinforced composites in geotechnical engineering applications.