Study of Properties of Banana Fiber , Extracted from Egyptian trees Lecturer / Hanaa

seeking spinning and Weaving industries are to produce eco-friendly fiber Natural . fibers have distinct properties like high strength, low weight, low cost processing and bio degradability than synthetic fibers (1) . banana fibers have the advantage of coming from an agricultural residue. Egypt produces around 65,000 feddans annually from banana trees and these trees are disposed of in a polluting environment . Fibers have been extracted by mechanical means from banana tree (2) . The aim of this paper is to examines how to extract banana fiber and study the mechanical , chemical and physical properties of fiber.


1-INTRODUCTION
Mankind has been strongly dependent on plant fibres for all kind of purposes.In earlier days, natural fibres served a crucial role mitigate the everyday needs in a wide range of uses.But in recent years the arrival of synthetic products are dominating over the natural fibre, due to the low cost (3) .But the synthetic fibres are non degradable and causing serious pollution problems.Banana is one of the earliest and important fruit crops cultivated by man in Egypt.

DOI: 10.12816/0045765
over an area of 65,000 feddans (4) , Banana farming generated huge quantities of biomass all of which goes as waste due to non availability of suitable technology for its commercial utilization .Normally this biomass is used for animal feed and fuel.Among its multi faced uses like therapeutic, alcohol, starch extraction and other innumerable uses, they are the best source of fibre (5) .Banana fiber is a lingo-cellulosic fiber, which obtained from the pseudo-stem of banana plant.Banana fiber is Used for apparels and home furnishings Banana fiber has great potentialities for paper making special demand of handmade paper.Banana fiber is making products like filter paper, paper bags, greeting cards, lamp stands, pen stands, decorative papers, rope, mats and composite material etc (6) .Banana fiber is used in currency notes in Germany and trial run in India also.Polypropylene reinforced with banana fiber is used by automobile companies for making under floor protection panels in luxurious cars like Mercedes.Banana fiber mostly used in making handicrafts and home decorative.Composite material of banana fiber used in buildings boards and fire resistance boards.During the research it was found that paper made out of this fiber has long life of over 100 years as it is strongest of the long fibers over found other natural fibers, which can be folded 3,000 times (7) .

BANANA FIBER EXTRACTION
Banana fibers were collected from waste part of banana tree after cultivation of banana in agriculture .The stem of banana trees were collected and soaked in water for 3 to 4 days.then banana stem was passed between rotating rollers 3 to 4 times.The wet fibers were dried in atmospheric temperature.(Fig. 1) shows Banana trees .(Fig. 2) Extraction of fibers by rolling process .(Fig. 3) shows Extracted Raw banana fiber.1) is those of the single cell fibers i.e., the physical properties of banana fibers.Fibers with the highest aspect ratio will exhibit highest tensile properties provide high surface area which are advantageous for reinforcement purposes.(Fig. 4) shows SEM micrographs of banana fibers .(Fig. 5) shows fibers with diameters from different micrometers and non-uniformity capillaries of thickness.

Chemical properties of banana fibers (Table 2)
shows the chemical composition of banana plant fibers, It is noted that cellulose and hemicelluloses the main constituent of plant fibers followed by lignin interchangeably with pectin respectively.Cellulose is also the reinforcement for lignin, hemi cellulose and Pectin .(Fig. 6) shows SEM-EDX In this figure of the banana fibers containing .(Table 3) Elements percentage by the EDx analysis .(Table 3) shows the Elements percentage by the EDx analysis .

Table. 3. Elements percentage by the EDx analysis
Mechanical properties (Table 4) shows mechanical properties of banana fibers, by which we use fibers as reinforcement for a good mechanical properties of composite materials.

Table. 4. Mechanical properties of banana fibers
(Fig. 7) shows SEM cross-section .the cross sectional area of the banana fiber was investigated by using Optical laser beam equipment by shows the cross-sectional area of the banana fiber taken for the analysis is 0.3596mm2.The cross-section dimensions of the fibers are measured at different degrees of orientation of the fiber cross-section.From the investigation it was predicted that the fiber cross-sections, are approximately circular.It was also observed that the magnitude of laser beam diffraction is dependent on the curvature of the cross-section and the fiber variety.Hence, the test gives relative shapes of the fiber rather than the actual cross-section area .(Fig. 8) shows the vertical cut section of SEM photographs of banana fiber .

Fig. 2 Fig. 1
Fig.2 Extraction of fibers by rolling process

(Fig. 7 )
SEM cross-section4-CONCLUSIONof mechanical , physical and chemical Properties . of banana fibe are superior as compare to other natural fibers.The utilization and application of the cheaper goods in high performance appliance is possible with the help of this composite technology.Combining the useful properties of two different materials, cheaper manufacturing cost, versatility etc., makes them useful in various fields of engineering, high performance applications such as leisure and sporting goods, shipping industries, Aerospace etc. Banana fiber can be spun to produce yarns, mixed or not mixed with other fibers, If we talk about the future of banana fibers, are very bright because they are cheaper, lighter and environmentally superior to glass fiber or other synthetic fibers composites in general.Hence, with this back ground, it is concluded that, the composites stand the most wanted technology in the fast growing current trend.