Mechanical and Thermal Properties of Cellulose Nanofibers from Jute Fibers Reinforced Polyvinyl Alcohol Composites

Abstract This study investigated the effects of loadings of cellulose nanofibers extracted from jute fibers on the tensile property, onset temperature, melting temperature, crystallization temperature, and thermal stability of polyvinyl alcohol matrix. The synthesized nanocomposites were characterized by scanning electron microscopy, Fourier transform infrared spectrometry, tensile tests, dynamic mechanical analysis, differential scanning calorimetry, and thermogravimetric analysis. Experimental results showed that there is an increase in both the modulus and strength of the composite films up to 10% cellulose nanofibers loading and a gradual decrease with further increases to 30% cellulose nanofibers loading. In addition, the thermal degradation of the composites occurs at higher temperature than that of both cellulose nanofibers and neat polyvinyl alcohol. However, thermal stability of the composites decreases with increase of the cellulose nanofibers content higher than 20 wt %.