Hemp fibre reinforced natural rubber bio-macromolecule based biodegradable engineered leather

Out of the diverse industrial applications of hemp fibre, for the first time we report the development of a leather alternative (flexible composite) material by integrating hemp fibre, as a bio-reinforcement and natural rubber (latex) macromolecules, as a matrix. For developing such unique product, primarily, hemp fibre was extracted from the Canabinus sativa L., i.e., industrial hemp plant. The structure and physico-mechanical properties of extracted hemp fibre used for making leather alternative were thoroughly studied. Characterization analysis has underscored that the fibre has crystallinity of around 78 % and composed of mainly cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin. Physical properties of fibre denote that hemp is longer, finer, stronger, higher elongation%, than widely available ligno-cellulosic jute fibre. Natural rubber (latex) biomolecule-based formulation was used as matrices, allowing the hemp fibre content in the flexible composite approximately 38-40 %. Developed flexible composite was then hot-pressed and coloured for mimicking with natural leather. Natural fibre-reinforced-leather with areal density of 250-550 g/m² were fabricated and were characterized in detail in terms of physical, structural, mechanical, and chemical properties. Tensile and tear strength of the developed leather material lies in between 8 and 9 N/mm² and 90-110 N, respectively. Moreover, different integral parts of natural rubber based engineered leather were examined by Fourier-Transform-Infrared-Spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), surface roughness, chemical composition analysis and scanning-electron-microscopy (SEM) techniques to understand the mechanical of interaction among the different component and to suggest the possible chemical reaction among the different macro-molecules, responsible towards good stability of the natural fibre-reinforced-leather structure.