Multiscale Physicochemical Response of Lignocellulosic Carludovica palmata Fibers to Controlled Drying and Alkaline Hydrogen Peroxide Treatment

Processing can alter the optical, structural, spectroscopic, morphological, and thermal characteristics of lignocellulosic fibers in different ways. Five measured states of Carludovica palmata were compared: an artisan-processed reference (PJ-0), water-conditioned fibers dried for 1 h at 84 and 104 ∘C (SPJ-84 and SPJ-104), and SPJ-104 fibers treated with two nominal alkaline hydrogen peroxide formulations (BPJ-3% and BPJ-6%). Relative image-based color analysis, X-ray diffraction (XRD), ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with fractal, multifractal, orientation, and spatial-texture analyses, and TGA/DTG were integrated within the same processing series. The BPJ-3% and BPJ-6% images showed similar measured appearance in the relative image-based color analysis, with a pairwise ΔE00=1.7, whereas their selected SEM fields differed in directional and boundary organization. The selected BPJ-3% field showed higher axial anisotropy (A=0.2835) than BPJ-6% (A=0.1183), while the selected BPJ-6% field showed DB=1.5570 and a singularity-spectrum width of Δα=1.3444. In the individual XRD profiles, BPJ-3% showed higher apparent Scherrer and Segal descriptors than BPJ-6%, whereas the individual BPJ-6% TGA/DTG profile showed the highest principal degradation-rate temperature of the series (Tmax=322.6∘C). Because the principal physicochemical series contained one independent specimen per condition and one SEM, XRD, and TGA/DTG measurement set per condition, these numerical differences are interpreted as specimen-level observations rather than reproducible treatment-level effects. The study therefore provides an integrated multiscale description of the measured fiber states while explicitly delimiting the level of inference supported by the experimental design.