Chromium-tanned leathers used in the manufacture of footwear and leather goods pose an environmental problem because they contain harmful chemicals and are very difficult to recycle. A solution to this problem can be composite materials from tree leaves, fruit residues and other fibrous agricultural products, which can replace chromium-tanned leather. The present study describes the preparation of biocomposite leather-like materials from microbial cellulose and maple leave fibers as bio-fillers. The formulation was optimized by design of experiment and the prepared biocomposites characterized by tensile test, FTIR, DMA, SEM, adhesion test, volume porosity, water absorptivity, surface wettability and shape stability. From the viewpoint of future use in the footwear industry, results obtained showed that the optimized material was considerably flexible with tensile strength of 2.13 ± 0.29 MPa, elastic modulus of 76.93 ± 1.63 MPa and porosity of 1570 ± 146 mL/min. In addition, the material depicted good shape stability and surface adhesive properties. The results indicate that a suitable treatment of biomass offers a way to prepare exploitable nonwoven fibrous composites for the footwear industry without further burdening the environment.

Materials composed of a polymer matrix reinforced with carbon/glass fibres providing lightweight and superior mechanical properties are widely used as structural components for automotive and aerospace applications. However, such parts need to be joined with various metal alloys to obtain better mechanical performance in many structural elements. Many studies have reported enhancements in polymer–metal bonding using adhesives, adhesive/rivet combined joints, and different surface treatments. This study investigated the influences of various surface treatments on the adhesion between glass-reinforced poly(phenylene) sulphide (PPS) and aluminium alloy during the injection over-moulding process. Adhesion strength was evaluated via the shear test. Correlations for the shear strength of the polymer–metal with different metal–substrate treatments were studied. Since the strongest bonding was attained in the treatment with the highest roughness, this value, as it determines the level of micromechanical interlocking of connected materials, seems to be a critical factor affecting the adhesion strength. Three-dimensional (3D) topographic images characterized with a 3D optical microscope indicated that there was a meaningful influence exerted by the interface topologies of the aluminium substrates used for the over-moulding process. The results further indicated that increases in a substrate’s surface energy in connection with atmospheric plasma treatments negatively influence the final level of the bonding mechanism.