A comprehensive chemical, physical, mechanical, and thermal characterization of novel cellulosic plant extracted from the petiole of Washingtonia robusta fibers

This research aims to extract fibers from Washingtonia robusta petiole waste (WRP) and characterize them to investigate their potential. WRP fibers were treated for 2 h using different concentrations of NaOH solution (1, 3, 5, and 10% by weight) and then soaked for 2 h. The treatments adopted have shown improvements in certain chemical, physical, morphological, thermal, and mechanical properties. This study revealed that the crystallinity index was improved by 40 to 50%. FTIR analysis confirmed the reduction and degradation of hemicellulose for the optimally alkalized fiber. The SEM micrograph results of alkali-treated fibers showed rougher surfaces. The higher thermal stability was achieved when the alkali treatment with 5% NaOH was adopted. Further, fibers treated with 5% NaOH demonstrated interesting tensile properties, clearly superior to those found in the literature: tensile strength, Young’s modulus, and strain to failure of 678 ± 35.24 MPa, 11.2 ± 1.2 GPa, and 22.6% ± 0.75, respectively, with an average diameter of 314 ± 0.02 μm. The characterization results indicate that these treated fibers can be a good alternative natural reinforcement material in lightweight polymer composites or other composites for the building industry.