Mohd Radzi Mohd Hafiezal

This purpose of this paper was to reveal characteristics of a composite structure containing carbon fiber as a reinforcement and blended synthetic epoxy/bio-epoxy derived from crude jatropha oil as resin and compared with fully synthetic epoxy. The composite structure was prepared by the vacuum-assisted resin transfer molding technique and was left to cure for 24 h at room temperature. Both were characterized for their thermal, chemical, and flammable characteristics. The incorporation of jatropha bio-epoxy into the matrix significantly improved the thermal stability between 288–365 °C as obtained by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) test. Dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA) curves showed slight diminution of performances and T_g from DMA tests confirmed well with the trend of T_g obtain by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) curves. On the other hand, the flammability property was rated horizontal burning (HB) which was the same as the fully synthetic composite, but the duration to self-extinguish was halved for the composite with jatropha bio-epoxy. Fourier transform infrared attenuated total reflectance (FT-IR/ATR) was conducted to determine the difference of functional groups’ spectrum due to bonding type existing on both specimens. Overall, the composite specimen with blended bio-epoxy exhibited better thermal stability, comparable flammability characteristics, and performances. The aim of this paper was to introduce bio-based epoxy as a potential alternative epoxy and to compete with synthetic epoxy so as to minimize the footprint of non-renewable composite.

Jatropha oil is an inedible oil that is mainly used for bio-fuel in cars, lorries, machineries and jets as it provides clean combustion, reduced carbon dioxide emission and additional power with unlimited renewable resource; jatropha plant. Several studies have been carried out by researchers to diversify jatropha oil's uses such as lubrification, bio-fuel, traditional medicine etc. This time, jatropha oil was being used as matrix in composite structure by epoxidizing jatropha oil (EJO) itself. This paperwork will present about the physical characterization (density, visual assessment, fiber volume fraction) of EJO blended with synthetic epoxy as resin in carbon fiber reinforced composite panel by vacuum assisted resin transfer moulding VARTM or vacuum infusion technique. It is found that by blending EJO with synthetic epoxy, their physical characteristics are almost the same and comparable except the color of blended EJO was a bit yellowish and matte. Density of composite panel with blended EJO was 4% lower than synthetic epoxy which contributed to lighter materials that could be built and the surface morphology of both are identical.

This research paper is about carbon fiber reinforced composite panels with novel bio-based epoxy derived from Malaysian crude Jatropha oil (Epoxidized Jatropha Oil) which is mixed with synthetic epoxy as matrix. Its manufacturability performances were then verified by tensile test, flexural test and burnt off test. Two composite panels (fiber carbon with 100 wt. % of synthetic epoxy and fiber carbon with 18 wt. % bio-epoxy blend with synthetic epoxy) were fabricated by vacuum assisted resin transfer moulding. Samples were cut according to respective ASTM dimensioning and were tested. It was found that the new composite panel performed well in manufacturability aspect with fiber volume fraction achieved was around 40 – 45%. Although its tensile and flexural performances are a bit lower but comparable, we could conclude that the novel bio-epoxy as matrix in fiber carbon reinforcement could be fabricated by using this process for further research.