Investigation on improving banana fiber fineness for textile application

The banana is one of the most commonly consumed fruits in Sri Lanka; after the fruit is harvested, the pseudostem is thrown down as waste. The banana pseudostem is a good source of natural fiber. The purpose of this project is to investigate the effects of banana fiber extraction, examine treatment parameters on fiber fineness and establish suitable methods to reduce the fineness that enable banana fibers to be used as textile materials. Ten popular Sri Lankan varieties of banana pseudostem were selected for this study. From the mechanically extracted banana fiber of these 10 varieties, Ambun (genome AAA) was selected for further analysis because it had the lowest fiber fineness. Four layers from the pseudostem of Ambun were extracted and put through a fineness and single fiber strength test. Scanning electron microscopy and fiber linear density were used to observe and determine the fineness of the enzyme and chemical treated banana fiber. The mechanical strength of the treated banana fibers was obtained by using a universal tensile tester machine. The test result showed the second and the third layers of the pseudostem to be the finest. The mechanically extracted fiber of the second and third layers of the pseudostem were put through an enzyme and chemical treatment. Results showed enzyme and chemical combined treated fibers to be the finest, with a reduced diameter from 168.4 µm to 48.8 µm, which is about 71% reduction compared to mechanical extraction.