How Plantains and Carbon Nanotubes Enhance Cars?

Researchers from one university have now demonstrated that plantain, a starchy kind of banana, is a promising source for an emerging class of composite materials for the automotive sector.

FREMONT, CA: A luxury automobile does not seem like a place to look for plant species like hemp, sisal, or wood used for industrial purposes. Yet automakers have been employing natural fibers for decades. A few high-end coupes and sedans use these in composite materials for interior door panels, interior, engine, sound insulation, and internal engine covers, among other things.

Unlike aluminum or steel, natural fiber composites do not rust and prove durable and easily molded. The most significant advantages fiber reinforced polymer composites bring to cars include good crash properties, lightweight, and noise and vibration-reducing characteristics. The challenge lies in making more parts of a vehicle from renewable sources. Natural fiber polymer composites can break, crack, and bend, and the reasons consist of too low tensile and flexural and affect the strength in the composite material.

Researchers from one university have now demonstrated that plantain, a starchy kind of banana, is a promising source for an emerging class of composite materials for the automotive sector. The natural plantain fibers are coupled with carbon nanotubes and epoxy resin to form a raw fiber-reinforced polymer hybrid nanocomposite material.

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Plantain is a perennial staple food product in tropical regions of Asia, Africa, and South America, and most varieties of plantain are eaten cooked. The researchers molded a composite material from epoxy resin, treated carbon nanotubes, and plantain fibers. The optimum number of nanotubes was 1 percent by weight of the plantain-epoxy resin combined. Thus, the resulting plantain nanocomposite was much sturdier and firmer than epoxy resin on its own.

The composite had 31 percent extra tensile and 34 percent more flexural power than the epoxy resin solely. The nanocomposite also had 52 percent greater tensile modulus and 29 percent larger flexural modulus than epoxy resin alone.

The hybridization of plantain with multi-walled carbon nanotubes augments the thermal and mechanical strength of the composite. These growths make the hybrid composite a competitive and substitute material for certain car parts.