Paper Title
The Effects of Different Alkali Treatments with Different Temperatures on the Colorimetric Properties of LignocellulosicRaffia Fibers

Abstract
Raffia fiber is a lignocellulosic fiber which is peeled from palm tree leaves which are found in the tropical and subtropical zones. Raffia fiber has a potential to be used as a reinforcement fiber for composite structures instead of expensive, non-biodegradable and non-renewable synthetic fibers beside of its decorative and garments usages in textile market. In this study, the effects of different alkali treatments (sodium carbonate and sodium hydroxide) with various temperatures (40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100oC) on the colorimetric properties (whiteness and yellowness indexes, K/S, L*, a*, b*, C*, ho, ΔE*) of raffia fibers were examined. Color strength (K/S) of the raffia fibers increased with the increase on treatment temperature for all studied treatments. Also, pH increase resulted in darker, yellower and less white raffia fibers. Color properties of textile materials may be as important as their mechanical properties which depend on their end-usage type. For that reason, it should be noted that alkalinity level of wet-processing treatments and treatment temperature increase will lead to significant color differences on the raffia fibers. Therefore, one should keep in mind that aforementioned appearance alterations may occur on raffia fibers depending on the severity of the wet processing treatment in respect of temperature and/or alkalinity. Keywords - Raffia fiber, alkali treatment, sodium hydroxide, sodium carbonate, lignocellulosic fiber, reinforcement fiber, composites