The effect of alkaline and silane treatments on mechanical properties and breakage of sisal fibers and poly(lactic acid)/sisal fiber composites

The main goals of this work were to study the effect of different chemical treatments on sisal fiber bundles tensile properties as well as on tensile properties of composites based on poly(lactic acid) (PLA) matrix and sisal fibers. For this purpose, sisal fibers were treated with different chemical treatments. After treating sisal fibers the tensile strength values decreased respect to untreated fiber ones, especially when the combination of NaOH + silane treatment was used. Taking into account fiber tensile properties and fiber/PLA adhesion values, composites based on silane treated fibers would show the highest tensile strength value. However, composites based on alkali treated and NaOH + silane treated fibers showed the highest tensile strength values. Finally, experimental tensile strength values of composites were compared with those values obtained using micromechanical models.