A comparative study of Spani composites and Spani nanocomposites prepared from musa sapientum

Our country India is the largest producer of banana (Musa sapientum ) contributing to 27 % of total world production and so annually large amount of banana pseudo stem containing nearly 62 % cellulose fibers are left unused on the plantation floor to serve merely as organic manure. Thus it is relevant, important and also economically profitable for our country to make it an industrially acceptable reinforcing material. This paper dealt with the synthesis and comparative study of composite and nanocomposite of Musa sapientum with a thermoset of SPANI (substituted polyaniline) prepared from resorcinol-paranitroaniline -urea- formaldehyde (R-PNA-U-F). The presence of various active sites and percentage of carbon, nitrogen and oxygen were provided by FTIR and elemental analysis respectively. In order to explore the use of composites and nanocomposites for different household and industrial applications, their XRD and TGA were done to know their crystallinity and thermal behavior respectively. The kinetic studies were done using Friedman Technique. Nanocomposites was found to be more crystalline and thermally stable than the than composite itself. The reorientation and molecular rearrangement after being associated with the solvent molecules was responsible for the improved crystallinity and thermal stability of the SPANI nanocomposite over the SPANI composite.