Fabrication of bamboo fiber reinforced polylactide biocomposites

Bamboo fiber (BF) is a good candidate as the reinforcement for green composites. The applications of bamboo fibers as fabric or structural reinforcements are being widely investigated. This study went through the process from the bamboo strips to the fibers and compounded with the PLA to form the composite pallets for the following injection molding process. The alkali-treated BF at 100 °C for 12 h could properly delignified the bamboo fiber strips, resulting in the required bamboo fiber bundles. After compounding with PLA using a banbury mixer, the resulting composite after injection molded composites can improve the mechanical properties including the tensile strength, tensile modulus, flexural strength, flexural modulus, and impact strength. The reinforced effect of the BF on PLA was quite apparent in our experiments. A simple rule of mixture was used to approximate the tensile modulus and strength of the PLA/BF composite.