CHAPTER II

This chapter presents the related literatures and studies as well as the conceptual
framework and research paradigm to provide the necessary information for the conduct of the
study and to better understand the research at hand. The discussion covers the materials to be
used and the operation and properties of banana fiber as the main product of the study. The
researchers also cited various authors for applied information making the study more reliable.

LITERATURE REVIEW

According to Adam & Yusof, 2015, in order to design a machine for banana champs fiber
extraction, it is part of necessity to have a better understanding and clear view of how do
extraction methods happens in general for variety of natural fibers. Industree, 2014, explained
that in paced era of technology, material like fiber can be used to form useful products. Fiber is a
hair like material. It is flexible and can be rotated or twist for weaving, braiding, knotting,
knitting and other things to make the desired product. Humphries, 2009 tells that fiber can be
found in the natural form of plants and animals as well as in synthetic form. Man-made or
synthetic fibers are either made up of chemicals or the processing of natural fibers to create new
fiber structure.
Sfiligoj Smole, Hribernik, Kleinschek, & Kreže, 2013 stated that there are many types of
natural fiber available in the world that made of plants, animals and insects. For plant fiber, it can
be found in hemp, pineapple, sisal, jute, coir, banana, bamboo, organic cotton, nettle and grass.
While for animals, fibers can be obtained from wool, mohair, cashmere, angora, yak wool,
alpaca wool and camel hair.
Traditional natural fiber has been used in all cultures around the world to meet the basic
needs of clothing materials, storage, buildings, and items of daily use such as straps and nets
(Presentation & Cell, 2006). People in ancient times used some natural fibers depend on their
local availability. Every part of the plant used is different, depending on the plants it selves.
Some fibers are extracted from the leaves (palm, screw pine, sisal, agave), husk (coir), skin
(banana, hemp, flax, jute), stem (banana, coconut, bamboo), and seeds (cotton) (NCERT, 2008).
Banana

Banana is one of the rhizomatous plants and currently grown in 129 countries around the
world. It is the fourth most important global food crop. Different parts of banana trees serve
different needs, including fruits as food sources, leaves as food wrapping, and stems for fiber and
paper pulp. Historically, banana trees had been used as a source of fiber with the earliest
evidence around the 13th century.
Because of the favorable climate, the Philippines produce about 3.5 metric tons of
bananas yearly and is the 5th largest exporter of bananas in the world. Banana is considered as
the most important fruit crop in the country in terms of volume of production and export
earnings. Banana fruits are the most popular in the Philippines because of the nutrients and
vitamins it possesses, but there are more benefits from the banana tree than just getting its fruit.
The plant’s other parts such as stalk, leaves, flower and trunks.
In banana plantations, after the fruits are harvested, the trunks or stems will be wasted.
Billion tons of stems, leaves and trunks are thrown away annually. Such waste provides
obtainable sources of fibers, which leads to the reduction of other natural and synthetic fibers'
production that requires extra energy, fertilizer, and chemical. The properties of banana fiber are
good absorbent, highly breathable, quickly dry with high tensile strength.

Figure . Banana trunk from the plantation.

Natural fibers

Natural fibers can be obtained around the world and will naturally differ from one
another in terms of their properties (Sfiligoj Smole et al., 2013). Even for the same natural fibers,
the properties could be different among researchers by the testing methods and sample with
different moisture conditions (Naik, Swamy, & Naik, 2014). Most natural fibers share common
three key chemical elements- lignin, cellulose and hemicellulose. The lignin function is to be a
shielding to barricade hemicellulose while providing energy as surplus (Dittenber & GangaRao,
2012). Whereas the cross linking molecules between the cellulose and hemicellulose will take
shape as the fundamental element. Figure 2.1 shows the percentage of chemical composition in
natural fibers.

Figure : Chemical composition in natural fibers (%) (Adam & Yusof, 2013)

Natural fibers are obtained from natural sources. It has many advantages over artificially
manufactured synthetic fibers. These fibers have high specific properties with low density. They
are ecofriendly unlike synthetic fibers because they are biodegradable and non-abrasive. The
disposal of natural fiber composites is easy, they can be easily combusted or composted at the
end of their product lifecycle. As compared to the cost benefits synthetic fibers, natural fibers
comparably offer high security if used for automotive applications. The distinct mechanical
properties of natural fibers are comparable to those of traditional reinforcements. Thus, the
intrinsic properties of natural fibers can satisfy the requests of the global market especially for
those industries concerned in weight reduction. The natural fiber has been an important textile
material in human civilization. The fabrics of pineapple leaf fiber are easy to print and dye,
sweat-absorbent and breathable, hard and not wrinkling, and it has good antibacterial and
deodorization performances. With growing environmental awareness, ecological concerns and
legislations, eco fiber have received increasing attention during the recent decades. (Praful P.
Lanjewar*, Nilesh P. Awate)
Natural fibers for many and varied industrial uses are a current area of intense interest.
Production of these fibers furthermore can add incomes to farmers and promote agricultural
sustainability. Fiber processing and use in industrial applications are affected by variables such
as length, uniformity, strength, fineness, surface constituents, surface characteristics and
contaminants. One of the main concerns of industries in incorporating natural fibers into
production parts is the fiber variability resulting from crop diversity, retting quality and different
processing techniques. (Jomm Foulk, Danny Akin, Rod Dodd, and Chad Ulven)

Fiber Strength

Fiber strength which is reported in the form of breaking strength, tensile strength and
tenacity/intrinsic strength was also evaluated in all the extracted banana fibers. A significant
increase in the value of this parameter in both the cases of banana trunk and banana stem as
compared to the respective controls indicates a positive effect of pectinase enzyme treatment.
However, the highest strength was obtained after 36 hours of enzyme incubation in the case of
banana stem while after even 24 hours of enzyme treatment in the case of banana trunk. This also
reflects about the efficiency of pectinase enzyme for improving the quality of extracted banana
fibers because pectinases contribute to the breakdown of non-cellulosic substances like pectin
materials and thereby separate the fibers from the core. Resmina et al. [14] have also reported the
effectiveness of retting process on banana fiber by the quality of tensile strength and breaking
elongation of the fiber but they had used pectin decomposing bacteria and MgO instead of the
enzymes.
Fiber Fineness

Fiber Fineness is also one of the most important fiber characteristics. Fibers exhibit a
variety of cross sectional shapes and they also vary in section along their length and vary from
fiber to fiber. Fiber fineness denotes the size of the cross sectional dimensions of the fibers. As
the cross sectional features are irregular, direct determination of the area of cross section is
difficult and often laborious. Some dimensional features such as swollen diameter, ribbon width
etc. can be determined directly and sometimes used to specify the fineness of cotton fiber. The
linear density or weight per unit length of the fiber is the more commonly used index of fineness.
The linear density is called either the fiber weight per centimeter or hair weight per centimeter
and is usually expressed in units of 10-8 g/cm or 10-5mg/ cm. In Tex system, the linear density
of cotton fibers is expressed in terms of milli Tex which is the weight in milligrams of one
kilometer length of fiber. It should be noted that it is quite possible to have fibers with identical
linear densities but different cross sectional areas. For example, a fiber with a high density will
have a smaller cross sectional area than a fiber of low density. Fineness of fibers (μg/inch) to a
larger extent depends on the maturity of the fibers and to some extent is also influenced by the
amount of the moisture present in the material.
Maximum value of fineness could be obtained after 36 hours of enzyme incubation in the
case of banana stem while in the case of banana trunk the value of fiber fineness was almost
equal in all the periods of enzyme incubation evaluated but it was of course more than the
untreated/ conventional case.

Tenacity

Tenacity is the customary measure of strength of a fiber. It is usually defined as the

ultimate (breaking) force of the fiber (in gram-force units) divided by the denier. Because denier
is a measure of the linear density, the tenacity works out to be not a measure of force per unit
area, but rather a quasi-dimensionless measure analogous to specific strength. In order to
compare strength of two fibers differing in fineness, it is necessary to eliminate the effect of the
difference in cross-sectional area by dividing the observed fiber strength by the fiber weight per
unit length. The value so obtained is known as "Intrinsic Strength or Tenacity". Tenacity is found
to be better related to spinning than the breaking strength. The strength characteristics can be
determined either on individual fibers or on bundle of fibers. Mean single fiber strength
determined is expressed in units of "grams/tex".
As it is seen the unit for tenacity has the dimension of length only, and hence this
property is also expressed as the "Breaking Length", which can be considered as the length of the
specimen equivalent in weight to the breaking load. Since tex is the mass in grams of one
kilometer of the specimen, the tenacity values expressed in grams/tex will correspond to the
breaking length in kilometers. Tenacity was found to be maximum at an enzyme incubation of 24
hours in the case of the fiber extracted from both the banana stem and the trunk (Table 6).
The results obtained in the present study can be further co-related with some of earlier reports
available in literature. Brahamkumar and Manilal [16] have studied SEM of bioextracted and
physically extracted banana fibers and have reported cleaner and smoother surfaces in
bioextracted fibers. Mooney et al. [17] have reported that the enzymatic hydrolysis of all the
pectic and hemicellulosic materials results in a high yield, environmentally friendly produced
pure cellulose and the production of individual fibers without the generation of Kink bands
(resulting from the breaking and scotching process) generates fibers with much higher intrinsic
fiber strength.
Saleem et al. have also reported positive effect of pectinase treatment on the mechanical
properties of hemp fibers and the fiber reinforced polypropylene. The positive effect was told to
be accomplished by enzymatic decomposition of middle lamella which caused separation of
technical fibers into smaller bundles and single fiber cells. This in turn resulted into improved
tensile and flexural characteristics of the thermoplastic composites.
Nalankilli et al. [19] have also reported efficacy of pectinase on removal of non-
cellulosics but they have used cotton fibers. In comparison to the solvent and alkali scouring,
they had reported lowest reduction in strength and elongation values of the enzyme scoured
cotton fibers against the control fibers.
Azzaz et al. have reported that treatment of hand stripped and dried banana fibers with
crude pectinase results into destruction of middle lamella which in turn effects the separation of
fibers. Similarly, Chauhan and Sharma have reported a positive role of enzyme treatment in
improving the quality of pseudo stem fiber of banana plant but they have used the commercially
available machine-extracted fiber of banana instead of the green plant parts. Thus the present
study/investigation has shed some light on the influence of pectinase enzyme treatment on fiber
extraction from the banana plant’s waste (leaves, pseudo stem and trunk). However, the time
period of enzyme treatment must be judged carefully to get the best quality of fiber because an
under-treatment makes the separation difficult while an over-treatment may weaken the fibers.

Banana Fiber

World Banana production in the year 2004 was estimated at about 70 million tons.
Different countries in the world have made their contribution for the banana production. India is
the largest producer of banana however Philippines and Japan are the major banana fibre
producing countries for large scale manufacturing of textile items made from banana fibre.
Philippines is also exporting huge quantity of readymade garments manufactured from banana
fibre to Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and all far East Asian countries. (National Institute of
Research on Jute & Allied Fibre Technology, Regent Park, Kolkata y)
The stem of the banana plant is usually thrown away once the plantain is harvested. The
stem forms a major waste material in large-scale banana plantations. And for the large-scale
farmers, the disposal of these stems is a real problem. Fiber can be extracted from banana stem
both manually and by mechanical extractor. A wide range of products including bags, baskets,
wall hangings, floor mats, home furnishings, etc. can be made with banana fiber. The fiber
extracted by mechanical process is of superior quality and is extensively used for making high
quality special paper and decorative papers. Banana fibers is used to manufacture handicrafts,
home decorative, door mats, table mats, pooja and meditation mats, In some countries, banana
fibers are used for making currency paper. (PK Das*, D Nag, S Debnath & LK Nayak)
Fibre is extracted from the leaf sheath or pseudostem of the banana plant by decortication
of the sheath. The pseudostem is the aerial stem seen above the ground and is formed by closely
packed leaf sheaths embedded in the growing tip. Each leaf has a basal leaf sheath forming a part
of pseudostem, petiole and lamina. It can be extracted by hand scraping, by retting, by using
raspador machines; it can be extracted chemically, for example by boiling in NaOH solution.
Extraction of the fibre for local use (in cordage) has been through manual means. The manual
process is adopted in the Phillipines and is called stripping. On the plantation site, the plant stems
are desheathed, the sheaths flattened, a knife inserted between the outer and middle layer, and a
50-80mm wide strip is separated and pulled off along the length. The strip is called as a tuxy and
the separation procedure is called tuxying. All the fibres are removed in tuxies from each sheath.
The tuxies are then scraped by pulling them through/ between a wooden block and a serrated
knife (400-2000 serrations/m or no serration) under considerable pressure. The manual effort,
which is considerable, decreases with decreasing serration density. (D.P. Ray, L.K. Nayak, L.
Ammayappan, V B Shambhu, D Nag )

Banana fiber, a ligno-cellulosic fiber, obtained from the pseudo-stem of banana plant
(Musa sepientum), is a bast fiber with relatively good mechanical properties. Bast fibers, like
banana, are complex in structure. They are generally lignocellulosic, consisting of helically
wound cellulose microfibrils in amorphous matrix of lignin and hemicellulose. The cellulose
content serves as a deciding factor for mechanical properties along with microfibril angle. A high
cellulose content and low microfibril angle impart desirable mechanical properties for bast
fibers. Lignins are composed of nine carbon units derived from substituted cinnamyl alcohol;
that is, coumaryl, coniferyl, and syringyl alcohols. Lignins are associated with the hemicelluloses
and play an important role in the natural decay resistance of the lignocellulosic material. The
composition of banana pseudostem obtained by elemental analysis, as determined by Bilba et.al2
is as given in the Table .

Sl.No Constitutents Percentage

1. Cellulose 31.27 ± 3.61

2. Hemicellulose 14.98 ±2.03

3. Lignin 15.07±0.66

4. Extractives 4.46±0.11

5. Moisture 9.74±1.42

6. Ashes 8.65±0.10

Table . Botanical composition of studied pseudostem fibers

Manual Extraction

Banana fiber can be obtained from waste stalk, leaf and roots of banana plant. Generally
abundant of banana fiber is obtained from surface near to the outer sheath of stem. It can be
peeled-off easily in ribbons of strips of 5-10 cm wide and 2-5 mm thick along the entire length of
the sheath. The undressing process is known as Tuxying and the ribbons are called as Tuxies.
(Suhaib A Sheikh*, N.P.Awate)

Bacnis Process
It is the simple stripping process in which trunks are pulled apart and sheath is undressed.
The fiber is obtained by removing pulpy and pulling away the ribbons (tuxy)

Loenit Process
In this process a knife or any sharp pointed tool is used for obtaining ribbons. Ribbons
are obtained from one sheath at a time. 20-25 kg of fiber is dried, cleaned and bundled.

Fig.4. Manual extraction of banana fibre

Chemical Extraction

For chemical extraction, alkali treatment is used. The alkali NaOH reduces roughness of
fiber and good quality of fiber is obtained. In addition, sulfuric acid, hydrogen peroxide,
protease, pectinase and sodium citrate were used.
Fiber-OH + NaOH -------Fiber-O-Na++ H2O

Thus main disadvantage of chemical extraction is time period taken in the whole process.
It can be seen from above graph to produce good quality fiber; chemical extraction takes 35-40
days. The process is costly. There is lot of wastage in the process. Also it is proven that using
chemical method causes environmental pollution compared to other environmental processes.
(Suhaib A Sheikh*, N.P.Awate)

Mechanical Extraction of Banana Fibre

The manual mechanical extraction of banana fibre was tedious, time consuming and
causing damage to the fibre. The method is simple and the machine is sufficient to extract fibre
from Banana stems. Extraction using machine reduces the drudgery of manual extraction of fibre
and provides a clean working environment. It will help the workers to produce more fibres and
get increased income. The machine consists of a rigid frame on which the roller rotates on a free
moving shaft. This process reduces drudgery and increases fibre production by 20-fold as
compared to manual process. In this method trunks are cut into sections of 120-180 cm in length.
The sections (one half the length at a time) are then crushed between rolls and the pulpy tissues
are separated by two large revolving drums, the rim of which are fitted with scrapping blade
which peel-off the sheath while it is pressed against a bed plate, oven dried, graded and baled.
(International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering)

Fig.. Mechanical extraction of banana fibre

Fig shown basic operation of banana fiber

Roller

Roller is the most important element in this machine. It applies necessary squeezing force
on pseudo stem and leaves separating the pulpy material and pigments, leaving only the fiber.
Type of the roller used mainly affect the quality of fiber.
When compared extraction fiber unit, the crushing line saw roller could separate a good
texture of banana leaf sheath. While a scratching roller which is of square tooth could remove the
pulpy impurities with damaging the fiber. (Praful P. Lanjewar*, Nilesh P. Awate)

Fig Rasp bar roller

Fig Crushing saw roller

Electric motor

A motor is an electromechanical device that converts electrical energy into mechanical

energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction of magnetic fields and current
carrying conductors to generated force. The reverse process, producing electrical energy from
mechanical energy, is done by generators such as an alternator or a dynamo. Electric motors and
generators are commonly referred to as electric machines.
Electric motors are found in applications as diverse as industrial fans, blowers and
pumps, machine tools, household appliances, power tools and disk drives. They may be powered
by direct current, such as battery powered portable device or motor vehicle, or by alternating
current from a central electrical distribution grid or inverter. The smallest motors may be found
in electric wristwatches. Medium sized motors of highly standardized dimensions and
characteristics provide convenient mechanical power for industrial uses. The very largest electric
motors are used for propulsion of ships, pipeline compressors, and water pumps with ratings in
the millions of watts. Electric motors may be classified by the source of electric power, by their
internal combustion, by their application, or by type of motion they give.

Shaft

A shaft is a common and important machine element. It is a rotating machine member,

usually circular in cross section, which is used to transmit power from one part to another, or
from a machine which produces power to a machine which absorbs power. The various members
such as pulleys and gears are mounted on it. They are mainly classified into two types,
transmission and mechanical shafts. Transmission shafts are used to transmit power between the
source and the machine absorbing power; e.g. counter shafts and line shafts. Machine shafts are
the integral part of the machine itself; e.g. crankshaft.
J.E Shigley and C.R Mischke, in their book “Mechanical Engineering Design” stated that
material used for ordinary shafts is mild steel. When high strength is required, alloy steel such as
nickel, nickel-chromium or chromium-vanadium steel is used. The shaft may be hollow or solid.
The shaft is supported on bearings and is acted upon y bending moment, torsion and axial force.
Design of shaft primarily involves in determining stresses at critical point in the shaft that is
arising due to aforementioned loading.
According to Paul H. Black, in machinery the general term “shaft” refers to a member
that is subjected to torsion and to transverse or axial loads, acting single or combination. They
are often stepped and have features for the attachment of parts like bearings and drive
components. The steps are typically arranged to allow components to be assembled onto the
shaft from both ends. There are two types of shafts commonly used in machinery: rotating or
transmission shafts and non-rotating shafts or axles. Both types must be carefully designed to
carry the expected loads.

Bearings

A bearing is a device that is used to enable rotational or linear movement, while reducing
friction and handling stress. Resembling wheels, bearings literally enable devices to roll which
reduces the friction between the surface of the bearing and the surface it’s rolling over. It’s
significantly easier to move, both in a rotary or linear fashion, when friction is reduced-this also
enhances speed and efficiency. In order to serve all these functions, bearings make use of
relatively simple structure; a ball with internal and external smooth metal surfaces, to aid in
rolling. The ball itself carries the weight of the load-the force of the load’s weight is what drives
the bearing’s rotation. However, not all loads put force on a bearing in the same manner. There
are two different kinds of loading; radial and thrust.
Bearing is a machine element that constrains relative motion to only the desired motion,
and reduces friction between moving parts. The design of the bearing may, provide for free
linear movement of the moving part or for free rotation around fixed axis or may prevent a
motion by controlling the vectors of normal forces that bear on the moving parts.

RELATED STUDIES
1.2 Problem statement

Agricultural wadDeforestation has become a global problem due to the need of fibrous material
from
trees to produce commercial product such as paper (Yusof, Yahya, & Adam, 2015).
Presently, banana leaves, pineapple leaves, and palm leaves, as well as a variety of
other fibrous tropical plant materials are thought of as agricultural wastes in the
countries where they are produced (Yusof et al., 2015). These wastes were disposed
3
of in landfills, creating problems of landfill capacity and attraction of insects. Further,
the wastes may be burned, thus polluting the air (Credentials, 2010). Recent research
has been done by the use of fiber from the agricultural wastes such as pineapple leaves
for paper-making and other uses to reduce the negative environmental impact resulted
from deforestation and the disposal of agricultural wastes (Yusof et al., 2015).
However, the extraction of fiber from pineapple leaves is costly and low yield.
The conventional methods for extraction of fibrous material such as pineapple
leaf comprise chemical and mechanical methods (Dittenber & GangaRao, 2012). The
chemical extraction method for pineapple leaf fiber which it is extracted through
boiling of the leaves with sodium hydroxide, followed by bleaching with hydrogen
peroxide solution, and mixing with Styrene Acrylic Acid (SAA) pulp filler and sizing
agents (Adam & Yusof, 2013). The major problem of this method is it requires long
processing time for washing, treating with chemical solution, and drying (Rahman,
2011).
There were many machine in the industry that are being used to extract fibers,
however these machines are costly and does not comply with the smaller industrial
need that requires only medium range output with affordability for the farmers (Adam,
Yusof, & Yahya, 2014). Furthermore, some of the machines damaged the extracted
fiber, hence reducing the quality of the fiber. The price and integrity of the fibers
become reduced (Mchenry, 1926).
Therefore, there is a need for the small-to-medium scale industry to invent a
modified apparatus for extracting fiber from pineapple leaves that is more economical
and requires less power consumption. Furthermore, it is able to maintain the leaf fiber
structure without snapping or totally damaging the fiber.
Pineapple Leaf Fiber Machine 1 (PALF M1) has been designed and developed
to solve these problems, since it is affordable, portable and does not damage the fibers
that are being extracted.
1.3 Objective of study
The objectives of the study are:
i. To design a machine that improves time for PALF extraction process compared
to conventional method.
4
ii. To fabricate a machine that improves PALF extraction production compared
to conventional method.
iii. To evaluate and verify the designed machine for small scale industrial use.