Influence of Organic Fillers on Physicochemical and Mechanical Properties of Unsaturated Polyester Composites

The mechanical and physicochemical properties of polyester reinforced with untreated palm kernel shell (PKS), sugarcane bagasse (SB), and pineapple chaffs (P) are investigated. A simple hand-lay method was used to produce the composites with addition of the fillers in the range of 5–50 vol%. Tensile, flexural, morphology, and FTIR examinations were used to investigate the effect of filler addition. Results show that sugarcane bagasse imparts better properties than palm kernel shell and pineapple chaff fillers. Flexural strength of composites with 10 vol% SB shows considerable improvement (29 %) over that of unreinforced polyester. A maximum tensile strength of 23 MPa was obtained at 20 vol% SB against 19.07 MPa of the unreinforced polyester. The impact strength of composites was also found to improve by 105 % over that of reinforced polyester.