presented
in Table 1. The addition of 15 wt% UAF reduced the T5% of
the biocomposite by 11 C and the Tf by 14 C as compared to
un-reinforced Mater-Bi and this reduction increases with the
increasing of UA fibers content. However, on contrary, alkali treatment
improves the thermal stability of biocomposite. The T5% and
the Tmax of the biocomposite based on 1ATA and 5ATA fibers can
be shifted to temperatures higher than that of MaterBi/UA, indicating
that it is more stable than MaterBi/UA. For fiber content until
20 wt%, the stability of the matrix can be recovered. At the same
fiber content, the T5% and Tmax of biocomposites at different concentration
of NaOH (from 1% to 5%) increased significantly when
increasing the soda concentration. In fact, this kind of treatment
has removed the hemicelluloses, lignin and impurities from the
fiber which has caused in higher thermal stability as demonstrated
in our previous work [31].