Mechanical Performance of CO2 and Autoclave Cured Date Palm Fiber Reinforced eco-mortar Composites

Abstract

Using nature waste fibers in construction industries had shown important character "environmental friendly" which paid a great interest around the world. The aim of this paper was to investigate the suitability of agriculture waste date palm fibers as lignocellulosic materials for the production of wood-cement composite, in addition to enhance their compatibility with cement using accelerated curing like carbonation or autoclave.Three percentages of date palm fibers were used (2, 6, and 10)% by weight of cement in cement composites specimens. Compressive, flexural and direct tension strengths were examined as strength properties and X-ray diffraction (XRD) as microstructure properties. The results show that carbonation curing was the most effective curing for compressive strength property while autoclave curing leads to better performance in flexural strengths. Curing type effects on direct tension property were fluctuated. This could be attributed to the variation in cellulose fiber roles with respect to each property evaluated. X-ray diffraction confirmed that CO2-curing led to increased CaCO3 content compared with autoclaved composites.