Study on How to Effectively Extract Bamboo Fibers from Raw Bamboo and Wastewater Treatment

Bamboo fibers are focused as one of substitution for natural plant fibers having many advantages such as low cost, low density, ecologically friendly, sustainability and biodegradability. The purpose of this study is to develop methods extracting bamboo fibers by using mechanical extracting, steam-explosion and alkaline-treatment techniques. How to control pH of wastewater yielding from alkali treatment is also one of the primary objectives of the present study. Mechanical properties (tensile strength, maximum strain at failure and Young’s modulus) of extracted bamboo fibers were measured as well as their microstructure configuration. Interfacial strengths were tested between bamboo fibers and typical resins for polymer matrix composites such as unsaturated polyester and polypropylene. The variation of moisture absorption due to the difference of fiber extraction process was also determined. The experimental results proved that the alkaline-treatment was better than the steam-explosion method to extract bamboo fibers as well for mechanically extracted fibers as reinforcement for green composites, where two years or older raw bamboo (younger than four years old) was immersed in 1% NaOH solution for 10 hours. The present study also revealed that CO2 gas was applicable to reduce pH from 10.8 to 7.0 within 110 minutes by aeration.