The new approach to improve the impact property of coconut fiber reinforced epoxy composites using sodium laulryl sulfate treatment

The present paper aimed at to investigate the effect of chemical modification of coconut fibers by Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) treatment in order to use them as reinforcement in epoxy resin. The coconut fibers were treated with 2%, 4%, 6%, 8% and 10% concentration of SLS, separately for 10 days respectively. For each group of the coir fibers the length was 10, 20 and 30mm. The modified coconut fibers were evaluated by using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM). The coconut fiber was used as a reinforcement and epoxy as a matrix to fabricate the composites by hand lay-up technique. The Impact strength of SLS treated fiber reinforced epoxy composite was measured with various fiber lengths and compared with NaOH treated fiber reinforced epoxy composites. The SLS treated epoxy composites provided better improvement in the impact strength about 6% when compared with NaOH treatment.