| Summary: | In recent years, due to growing environmental and ecological concerns, many studies have focused on the use of renewable resources as a starting material or blending component in the polymer resin formation. To tap to the mass production of palm oil in Malaysia, this study focuses on developing a novel hybrid glass/kenaf fiber reinforced epoxy composites from acrylated epoxidized palm oil (AEPO) filled organo modified montmorrillonite nanoclay (OMMT) and cured with bio-based hardener. The effects of AEPO and OMMT loading on mechanical and thermal properties, morphology as well as water absorption properties of epoxy/AEPO nanocomposites were investigated. The amounts of AEPO in epoxy resin were varied at 10, 20 and 30 wt% and the OMMT loadings were varied at 1, 1.5 and 2 phr. The results revealed that the impact strength and ductility properties of epoxy/AEPO resin improved with AEPO loading. The highest improvement of impact strength was indicated by epoxy/AEPO resin with 30 wt% AEPO loading, representing 57.8% higher than the neat epoxy resin. However, the strength and modulus of epoxy/AEPO resins were reduced with increasing of AEPO content. The addition of OMMT improved the modulus and thermal stability of nanocomposites with the optimum balanced properties at 10 wt% AEPO and 1.5 phr OMMT nanoclay loading. At this loading, tensile modulus of epoxy resin with 10 wt% AEPO loading improved 45.6 % higher than the neat epoxy/AEPO resin. The thermogravimetric analysis and dynamic mechanical analysis results also revealed that the thermal stability and glass transition temperature of epoxy/AEPO nanocomposites improved with the addition of OMMT up to 1.5 phr OMMT loading. The hybrid glass/kenaf fiber composites were fabricated using hand lay-up technique. The moisture absorption behaviour and its effects on the flexural properties of hybrid glass/kenaf fiber composites were investigated. The water absorption studies showed that the hybridization between glass and kenaf fibers significantly affected the water absorption and flexural strength of the composites. The alternated layering sequence of GKKG (where, G and K stands for glass and kenaf fiber, respectively) gave the best flexural properties of the resulted hybrid kenaf/glass fiber reinforced epoxy/AEPO filled OMMT composites. The overall results showed that montmorrilonite filled epoxy/AEPO hybrid kenaf/glass fiber composites are potential materials which could be utilized for applications in automotive panels, wall or floor panels, furniture, and housing construction materials.
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