Impact of Hot Water Treated Lotus Leaves on Interfacial and Physico-Mechanical of Gelatin/Lotus Leaf Composites

The focus of this work was to analyze the influence of leaf treatments on mechanical, physical and chemical properties and thermal stability of the gelatin/lotus leaf composites. Lotus leaves were treated with drinking water at 95 °C for 5 min. The gelatin/untreated lotus leaf (referred to as GUL) and the gelatin/hot water treated lotus leaf (referred to as GHL) composites have been prepared by the compression molding technique. The composites have been investigated by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TAG), Scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Effect of the lotus leaf hand lay-up fiber orientation was studied for longitudinal, transverse and random orientation of the fibers. The tensile strength of gelatin/lotus leaf composites were influenced by the orientation of the fibers. It was found that longitudinal orientation delivered higher mechanical properties than that of the transverse and random orientation whether untreated or treated. The hot water modification of the lotus leaf was employed to improve the interfacial adhesion of the composites in order to improve the tensile properties. By using TGA analysis data and Ozawa-Flynn-Wall (OFW) method, the thermal stability and degradation temperature of the lotus leaves treated with hot water were higher than those of untreated leaves. In addition, the properties of the novel bio-composites were potential in further development of biodegradable packaging materials.