The miscibility between hydrophilic biofibre and hydrophobic matrix has been a challenge in developing polymer biocomposite. This study investigated the anhydride modification effect of propionic and succinic anhydrides on Kenaf fibre's functional properties in vinyl ester bionanocomposites. Bionanocarbon from oil palm shell agricultural wastes enhanced nanofiller properties in the fibre-matrix interface via the resin transfer moulding technique. The succinylated fibre with the addition of the nanofiller in vinyl ester provided great improvement of the tensile, flexural, and impact strengths of 92.47 ± 1.19 MPa, 108.34 ± 1.40 MPa, and 8.94 ± 0.12 kJ m-2, respectively than the propionylated fibre. The physical, morphological, chemical structural, and thermal properties of bionanocomposites containing 3% bionanocarbon loading showed better enhancement properties. This enhancement was associated with the effect of the anhydride modification and the nanofiller's homogeneity in bionanocarbon-Kenaf fibre-vinyl ester bonding. It appears that Kenaf fibre modified with propionic and succinic anhydrides incorporated with bionanocarbon can be successfully utilised as reinforcing materials in vinyl ester matrix.
Keywords: Kenaf fibre; anhydride modification; bionanocarbon; bionanocomposites; reinforcing material; vinyl ester.