Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

One of the feasible ways to achieve sustainable construction is to use building materials with lower amount of embodied energy. Several organizations such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) proposed to use renewable materials in construction. Biomass and especially Natural Fibers (NFs) are ideal candidates for being used in building materials as they are renewable, eco-friendly, and have high specific strength. These materials can be used as reinforcements in bio-composites.However, some barriers limit their use in these applications. The problems are related to the hydrophilic nature of NFs. This not only prevents them from being used in hydrophobic polymers (bad dispersion and bad interfacial adhesion), but also increases the rate of moisture absorption of Natural Fibers Reinforced Composites (NFRC). The latter results in swelling, dimensional instabilities and finally the deterioration of properties.Various methods have been developed to mitigate these problems. However, the efficiency of these methods are still questionable. I have developed new methods, which could significantly decrease the NFs moisture absorption rate and consequently the NFRC moisture uptake capacity at saturation.Although the methods have successfully decreased the hydrophilic nature of NFs and in parallel increased the compatibility of NFs with polymeric matrices, their full potentials have not yet been developed. Hence, the methods need to be optimized according to the final application of the materials. This research program intends primarily to fine-tune the previous treatment techniques that I have recently elaborated. The objective is to modify NFs hydrophilic characteristic to become more durable in applications with different levels of exposure to humidity (low, medium, and high humidity). Finally, this research is going to develop durable NFRC by using these modified fibers for internal and external parts of building envelopes.