Tensile mechanical properties, morphological aspects and chemical characterization of piassava (Attalea funifera) fibers

The tensile mechanical properties of piassava fibers, as well as their chemical composition and morphological aspects, are reported. The values obtained showed that piassava has a mechanical behavior and chemical composition comparable to that of coir fibers. The difficulties related with a reliable way of measuring the true elastic modulus of these slender fibers are discussed and a simple correction of the experimental data is presented. As main characteristic surface features piassava fibers present a well arranged pattern of silicon rich star-like protrusions. Its chemical composition reveals that piassava are lignin rich fibers, 48.4 wt%. X-ray diffraction showed that cellulose I is their main crystalline constituent. Their thermal degradation begins at 225 °C, and the whole thermal degradation behavior of piassava fibers has many aspects, like the initial water loss and the content of residues, close to that shown by pure lignin.