Abstract

Cellulose nanofibres were extracted from natural fibre Jute by a chemical and mechanical technique to examine their potential for use as reinforcement fibres in biocomposite applications. The Present work was to investigate the possibilities of breaking down the sub-micron fibrillar structure to fabricate submicron and nano particles by high energy ball milling. Nano fibres of jute were characterized by X Ray Diffraction and its structural morphology has studied by Scanning electron microscope. FT-IR spectroscopy analysis showed that the lignin and hemicelluloses was removed for NaoH treated jute fibres. The XRD analysis that the particle size distribution reduced from micro to 20-50 nm. SEM observations revealed that the nano particles of jute fibre were exhibited spherical and elliptical shape. Nanofibre composites were prepared with different weight percentages (1 wt. % to 5 wt. %) via hand lay-up technique. The mechanical properties of nanofibre reinforcement has improved when compared with the virgin composite. The maximum improvements were observed in 3 wt. % Jute nanofibre composites.