Modified palm kernel shellfiber/particulate cassava peel hybrid reinforcedepoxy composites

This work was carried out to investigate the influence of chemically treatment palm kernel shellfiber (PKSF) andparticulate cassava peel (PCP) as hybrid reinforcements on some selected mechanical properties and wearbehavior of PKSF/PCP hybrid reinforced epoxy composites. Open mould technique was used for the compositesdeveloped by incorporatingfixed amount of PKSF in both treated and untreated conditions into varied pro-portions of epoxy and PCP, respectively. The cured samples after 28 days were subjected to tensile,flexural andwear tests. Porosity of the composites were estimated by considering the experimental and the theoretical den-sities of the composite samples. The fractured surface morphology was investigated with Scanning Electron Mi-croscopy (SEM) while X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) was used to determine the elemental constituent of the cassavapeel. From the results, it was discovered that, chemically treated PKSF/PCP hybrid reinforced samples performedbetter than the untreated PKSF/PCP hybrid reinforced counterparts in most of the properties considered. Theaddition of chemically treated PKSF/PCP hybrid reinforcement into the epoxy matrix brought about someenhancement in the stiffness of the developed composites which made them have better resistance to deformationunder different loading conditions for the estimation of young’s modulus of elasticity,flexural strength at peakand wear. Optimum values were obtained from the addition of 6 wt.% PCP reinforcement compositio