Development of a superabsorbent material from a modified blend of banana and sugarcane bagasse fibers

Abstract

Superabsorbent materials are used in a vast number of applications including medical, industrial, agricultural and personal care products. The rapid growth in the textile industry and improvement in technology has tasked innovators to diversify on the different textile raw materials for various applications improving on the utilization and management of resources. Banana fibers have been utilized for clothing application and bagasse fibers used for cleaning oil floors due to their reasonable absorbency. In efforts to curb plastic pollution the national environment authority (NEMA) came with a national strategy for management of plastic pollution (2023 to 2028) which involves shaping market for plastic alternatives. The fibers were blended by carding processes to obtain a thorough mixture of the fluff fiber pulp. Box Behnken Design (BBD) as the response surface methodology RSM was used considering factors acrylic acid, fibers, potassium persulfate, time, temperature for polymerization and cross-linking Graft polymerization was carried out on the carded fiber fluff pulp using acrylic acid and potassium persulfate as the initiator and crosslinked using N, N-methylene bisacrylamide (MBA).