Flax (Linum usitatissimum L.) is a plant of industrial importance, its fibres being presently used for high-value textile applications, composite reinforcements as well as natural actuators. Human interest in this fibre-rich plant dates back several millennia, including to Ancient Egypt where flax was used extensively in various quotidian items.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFlax fibres have been used by humans for approximately 10,000 years. With time, the geographic area of production and cultivation has changed, as have the applications of flax fibres; from clothing to sails and paintings from antiquity, to automotive, fashion, and design applications in the contemporary era. The degradation process of flax fibres is the same for both ancient and modern objects made from this polysaccharidic material.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFlax has a long and fascinating history. This plant was domesticated around 8,000 BCE in the Fertile Crescent area, first for its seeds and then for its fibres. Although its uses existed long before domestication, residues of flax yarn dated 30,000 years ago have been found in the Caucasus area.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLA-flax non-woven composites are promising materials, coupling high performance and possible degradation at their end of life. To explore their ageing mechanisms during garden composting, microstructural investigations were carried out through scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). We observe that flax fibres preferentially degrade 'inwards' from the edge to the core of the composite.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFToday, plant fibers are considered as an important new renewable resource that can compete with some synthetic fibers, such as glass, in fiber-reinforced composites. In previous works, it was noted that the pectin-enriched middle lamella (ML) is a weak point in the fiber bundles for plant fiber-reinforced composites. ML is strongly bonded to the primary walls of the cells to form a complex layer called the compound middle lamella (CML).
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