The effect of pineapple leaf fiber as a filler in polymer matrix composite for interior part in automotive

Recently, many natural fibers such as sisal, banana, kenaf, oil palm and jute have been used as reinforcement in the thermoplastic composite. Furthermore, the process of compounding materials between natural fiber and thermoplastic are applied it in the manufacturing of automotive, construction, furniture and goods industry. Pineapple leaf fiber (PALF) is one of natural fibers, which has a good potential to be reinforced with thermoplastic materials and create a new superior composite material. Therefore, this phenomenon is related to this research which is purposely to investigate the mechanical properties of PALF reinforced with polypropylene (PP) as a matrix by varying fiber weight fraction, to identify the physical properties of PALF reinforced with PP and to analyze the microstructure of PALF/PP composite. The process started with the preparation of raw pineapple leaf and then treated with alkaline treatment. PALF and PP were compounded using hot compression process by using hot press and cooling machine to produce the samples. The composite samples were prepared according to the standard requirement to perform the tensile test (ASTM D3039), density test (ASTM D792) and hardness test (ASTM D2240. Based on the result of tensile test, it was found that the maximum load of PALF/PP composite decreasing linearly with the increment of fiber loading. However, the trend for hardness and density was increasing linearly as the fiber loading increased. This study identifies that 10 wt% of fiber loading is the best selection for the composition structure of PALF/PP composite.