New Development of Cattail Fibre in Composite Uses

This paper is aiming to develop the cattail fibre as reinforcing material due to its environmental benefits and excellent physical and insulated characteristics. The current work is concerned with the development of the technical fibres from the original plant and research on their reinforcing properties in the innovative composites. Polypropylene (PP) fibre was used as matrix in this research which was fabricated into fibre mats with cattail fibre together with different fibre volume fractions. Cattail fibre reinforced PP laminates were manufactured and compared with jute/PP composites. The tensile and bending properties of laminates were tested. The SEM micrographs of fracture surface of the laminates were analyzed as well. The results reveal that the tensile and bending properties of cattail/PP laminates are closed to those of jute/PP composites. The mechanical properties of cattail/jute/PP laminates with fibre volume fraction of 20/35/45 is betther than those of laminate reinforced with cattail fibers.