Properties of Natural Luffa Vine as potential reinforcement for biomass composites

Abstract The exploration of luffa vine (LV) in the polymer composites field can contribute to the development of lightweight composites and expand their use in new wide scale applications. In this study, the physical and chemical properties and the microstructure of the LV fibers were investigated by various techniques. The results of LV density and microscopic characteristics indicated that this crop is a lightweight (with density mainly concentrated in 0.30–0.45 g cm−3) natural fiber with a porous structure (the ratio of wall to lumen: 0.2–0.3). Transmission electron microscopy and nanoindentation analyses showed that the secondary wall of the LV sclerenchyma cell is made up of two layers with spiral thickening and exhibiting a high nanoindentation modulus (7.8–10.4 GPa) and a high nanoindentation hardness (0.40–0.58 GPa). The chemical composition and X-ray diffraction analysis indicated that the LV has high lignin content (20–25%) and a relatively high relative crystallinity index of cellulose, which are conducive to increase the hardness of the LV fiber. Moreover, microscopic characteristics analysis also revealed that the LV fiber cells have a relatively high aspect ratio (30.3), there are pit pairs on the LV fiber cell walls, and the core fiber cells of the LV have relatively high flexibility coefficient (0.8), which are beneficial to increase the processability of composite materials with the LV fibers as reinforcement.