Effect of surface modification of Grewia optiva fibres on their physicochemical and thermal properties

This paper deals with the surface modification of Grewia optiva fibre through benzoylation and graft copolymerization process. Benzoylation of Grewia optiva fibre has been carried out on mercerized fibre with varying concentrations of benzoyl chloride solution. Graft copolymerization of acrylonitrile (AN) onto Grewia optiva fibre was carried out with ceric ammonium nitrate as the redox initiator in aqueous medium under the influence of microwave radiation. Raw, graft copolymerized and benzoylated fibres were subjected to evaluation of some of their properties like swelling behaviour, moisture absorbance and chemical resistance behaviour. It has been observed that 5% benzoyl chloride treated and graft copolymerized Grewia optiva show more resistance towards moisture, water and chemicals when compared with that of raw fibre. Further morphological, structural changes, thermal stability and crystallinity of raw, graft copolymerized, pretreated and benzoylated fibres have also been studied by SEM, FTIR, TGA and XRD techniques.