By Danny O. Calleja
LEGAZPI CITY, Nov. 23 (PNA) — Apart from cordage, furniture, handicrafts, paper, textile, twines, fishing lines, nets and coarse cloth for sacks, abaca fiber is now also being used in car manufacturing, according to the Philippine Fiber Industry Development Authority (PhilFIDA).
Car manufacturer Chrysler-Daimler recently cited the very good ecological balance of abaca fiber combined with its excellent technical properties similar to those of glass fiber, the material previously used in the underbody protection of cars, PhilFIDA Bicol Regional director Ramon Borromeo said here Saturday.
Compared with glass fiber, the use of abaca fiber provided about primary energy savings of 60 percent, significantly reducing carbon dioxide emission, Borromeo quoted Chrysler as saying.
This reinforced the point that in the automotive industry, abaca is being used for “soft” applications as a filling material for bolster and interior trim parts, he said.
However, given its strong tensile strength, it can also be used for “harder” applications for exterior semi-structure components as a substitute for glass fiber in reinforced plastic components.
Mercedes Benz is also using a mixture of polypropylene thermoplastic and abaca yarn in automobile body parts, Borromeo said.
Replacing glass fibers with natural fibers can reduce the weight of automotive parts and facilitates more environmentally-friendly production and recycling of the parts, he explained.
Owing to the extremely high mechanical strength of the fiber as well as its length, application of abaca even in highly stressed components offers great potential for different industrial applications.
According to the Industrial Technology Development Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), another potential use of abaca fiber is as a better material for roofing of public utility jeepneys because of its lower heat conductivity.
This means that abaca keeps inside temperature cooler, making it suitable for the country’s tropical warmth and humidity, the DOST said.
Another study conducted by the Department of Mining, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering of the University of the Philippines, Diliman, revealed that abaca fiber shows a high tensile strength, which means it can bear up 140,686 pounds per square inch.
It can also reach a maximum length of three meters.
The research also discovered that optimizing weave construction and patterns in abaca as natural fiber reinforcement ensures better control and consistency of composite properties.
At the Polytechnic University of the Philippines (PUP), a team of mechanical engineering students built a prototype eco-car with its body composed of abaca fibers (sinamay), resin and glass fibers as official entry to the 2013 Shell-Asia Eco-Marathon competition.
PhilFIDA, alongside other entities, took part in the assembly of this energy-efficient and environment-friendly eco-car which will compete together with ten other teams from the Philippines.
As the weight of the car body affects the speed of the prototype, the team PUP conceptualized the incorporation of abaca fiber which is lightweight, eco-friendly and a good reinforcing material.
As one of the sponsors, PhilFIDA provided materials and chemicals for the fabrication of the abaca-fiberglass-composite cover of the car as well as technical assistance through the Fiber Utilization and Technology Division on the application of abaca fiber, sourcing of chemicals and materials, and resin formulation among others.
Ahead of these automotive uses, the country’s abaca fiber known worldwide as Manila Hemp has come a long way from its humble beginning as raw material for our ancestors’ coarse and stiff clothing as well as footwear.
While abaca is still being used for these purposes, its application has expanded to sophisticated industrial uses.
Abaca pulp is processed into specialty papers that include tea and coffee bags, sausage casing paper, currency notes (Japan’s yen banknotes and Philippine peso bills contain up to 30-percent abaca), cigarette filter papers, medical /food preparation/disposal papers, high-quality writing paper and vacuum bags, among others.
It was, however, only much later that the commercial or export importance of abaca was discovered.
According to historical accounts, an American lieutenant of the U.S. Navy brought a sample of abaca fiber to the United States in 1820.
This gave the initial impetus to Philippine abaca trade with the US that five years later, the first exportation of abaca was made.
Since then, abaca became well known as one of the strongest materials for marine cordage because of its superior tensile strength and proven durability under water.
With the onset of the 20th century, abaca fiber has become the premier export commodity of the Philippines, which now supplies 85 percent of the world market needs.
For the past ten years, the country’s exports of abaca fiber averaged 13,434 metric tons (MT) per annum as the demand of the country’s major trading partners—the United Kingdom and Japan—contracted substantially, particularly in 2009 when financial crisis hit the global economy.
Europe, specifically the United Kingdom, is the premier destination of Philippine abaca fiber, absorbing an average of 6,663 MT, or 49.6 percent, of the ten-year average exports.
The country posted an amount of $ 120 million in abaca export earnings in 2011 or over P5 billion on the back of increased demand for abaca pulp and cordage in the Philippines’s major markets.
Catanduanes, an island province in Bicol, is celebrated as the country’s top producer of abaca products for both the domestic and international markets.
With its over-24,000 hectares of abaca land being attended to by about 23,500 farmers, the province produces an average of 18,971 MT of fiber representing 33.2 percent of the total national production.(PNA)