The Utilization Of Dried Banana Trunk As Potential Alternative Rope

Introduction

Banana is one of the most important fruit crop in the Philippines. It is cultivated around the country. It is woven into very thin transparent fabric which is the principal material in some regions forming men’s shirt and many finish products like yarn, cardboard, paper bags, and tea bags. According to several studies that was been conducted, these products only use 10% of pseudostem.

Banana is the major source of pseudostem. It left a huge amount of pseudostem that when it is dumped or burned it causes environmental pollution. This is why the researchers conducted this research because they are planning to make a rope from banana fiber, specifically to be used in construction. Mankind has been strongly dependent on plant fibers for all kind of purposes. In earlier days, the natural fibers served a crucial role mitigate the everyday needs in a wide range of uses. But in recent years the arrival of synthetic products are dominating over the natural fiber, due to the low cost. But the synthetic fibers are non-degradable and causing serious pollution problems. (Balakrishna, 2013).

Banana Trunk

Banana scientific name for Musa, are produce in tall plants, which are often mistaken as tree. They actually have pseudostems formed from leaf sheaths, apart from producing sweet fruits; the plants have many different uses. In fact almost all the parts of a banana plant are useful. Most are around 5m (16 ft.) tall with the range from “Dwarf Cavendish” plants are around 3m (10ft) to “Gros Michel” at 7m (23 ft.) or more.

In terms of chemical properties, banana fiber have many advantages which can be used a good raw material. The main objective is to evaluate the mechanical properties such as impact strength, tensile strength, flexural strength and hardness of fabricated composites. The composite material has been cut in suitable dimensions with help of zig saw for mechanical tests as per ASTM standards. The designation and detail composition of Composites and the result was it has been observed that the better mechanical properties found for composites reinforced with 10mm fiber length with 15% fiber loading.

Effects of Fiber Configuration on Mechanical Properties of Banana Fibre

Natural fibers are cellulosic materials, they consist of micro fibrils an amorphous matrix of lignin and hemicellulose. These fibers consist of several fibrils that run all along the length of the fiber and the objective is to investigate the effects of different configurations of continuous banana fiber reinforcement on mechanical properties of composite materials. The raw banana fiber and were cut in according to the desired length and then arranged in continuous order in the direction of the mold. The banana fiber mat configuration was prepared by arranging, knitting, and cutting.

The fibers were woven using knitting tool and then cut to the mold shape and the result was the tensile strength of the natural fiber reinforced composites with three different configurations of banana fiber are higher when compared to the unreinforced PP. This showed that polymer composites reinforced with banana fiber possesses better mechanical strength than unreinforced PP/Banana yarn composite gave the highest improvement of tensile strength, which is 294% from the unreinforced PP polymer.

Physical and Chemical Properties of Banana Fiber

Huge quantity of biomass generates from banana farming which goes as waste. The above ground parts like pseudo stem and peduncle are the major source of fiber and the objective is to indicate that the banana waste utilization will be help to the farmer’s, entrepreneurs, planners, scientist as well the government. The pseudo stem and peduncle of following banana cultivars viz., Grand Naine, Poovan, Nendhran and Monthan were collected and stripped ribbons of pseudo stem are basically known as Tuxies.

Fiber was extracted from the pseudo stem of different cultivars using semi- automatic machine, developed by KVK, C.T.R.I (ICAR), Ramajandry, India and the result was showed that the pseudo stem, peduncle weight and fiber yield differs significantly among cultivars. The highest fiber recovery per cent was obtained from pseudo stem of Poovan (2.71%) followed by pseudo stem of Nendran (2.30%). The lowest was recorded in peduncle of Nendran (0.283%).

Conclusion

The banana fiber is possible as potential alternative tie in construction because of its strength which is almost four times stronger than 2mm dia. Synthetic rope and 40 % tensile strength if it is compare to synthetic rope with a same diameter. Also there is no corresponding cost in terms of banana rope unless the researchers wanted to apply the varnish/coat for its physical appearance.

Recommendation

• The length of the banana rope should be 0.75 m – 1 m.
• Compare the banana rope into abaca rope.
• Try to use the banana rope for slope protection.
• In each specimen with different diameter, perform a durability test. ( 8mm, 10mm, 12mm diameter).
• Test the banana rope one month before the schedule of the defense.
• Try to put half of the sample in the water for at least one week before the testing. See the difference between the sample that is soak in the water and the normal one.