Experimental Investigation and Characterization of Abaca Fiber Lumens as Potential Carriers in Self-Healing Applications

This paper presents a novel plant-derived core-shell fiber carrier that can be used in self-healing applications. The study used abaca fiber lumens as a self-healing carrier for the first time. The fibers were characterized under SEM at different positions to know the lumen structure and achieved a 39.19% lumens fraction and 16.13 µm lumen diameter. Healing resins were embedded in the lumens using modified VARTM. The core was confirmed using FESEM-EDX. Thermal degradation was determined via TGA under a nitrogen atmosphere. The mechanical and self-healing properties, as well as a single-fiber tensile test, were conducted with a cell load of 5 kgf. The healing resin (VE-CN)-embedded fibers showed a strength improvement of 14.78% compared with the strength of pure abaca fibers. The improved strength is attributed to the reorientation of the crystalline cellulose in the tensile direction. Additionally, some of the tensile-fractured fibrils self-healed after 24 h and showed a restored strength of 100.71 MPa. The restored strength explains that the fiber lumens are the potential to carry a healing resin and release upon the damage.