Flax fibres are oftenly used for reinforcing thermoplastic to manufacture biocomposite materials exhibiting numerous advantages such as high mechanical properties, low density and biodegradability. The mechanical properties of a biocomposite material depends on the nature and orientation of the fibres, the nature of the matrix and mainly on the adhesion between fiber and the polymer matrix. The main problem with these natural fiber is poor compatability and hydrophilic nature. Therefore, the fiber is needed to be chemically treated to reduce water absorption, enhancing adhesion between fiber and polymer matrix. For selecting most suitable thermoplastic polymer for a certain application, the properties of the available polymers is needed to known. Since data tend to be widely scattered over many sources, it is the purpose of this paper to give an overview of the most relevant properties of flax, thermoplastic polymers and various chemical treatment and processing techniques adopted for developing a range of thermoplastic biocomposite.

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The potential use of agricultural fibre in reinforced plastics composite materials is latest to construction industry. The advantages of bast fibre based composite materials are lightweight and low stiffness compares to conventional material such as lumber, aluminium and synthetic fibre composite construction profiles. It is also environmental friendly and economically practicable. Engineering fibres such as flax and hemp are available in North America and sustainable, biodegradable and renewable in nature. In this research, we investigate the probable replacement of synthetic fibre with Saskatchewan oilseed flax to make a cost effective alternative and compliments to existing profiles such as aluminium profiles, lumber and synthetic fibre based profiles used in housing industries. These bast fibre based profiles are made out of thermoset plastics (i.e. Epoxy and Polyester) as matrix and Saskatchewan grown flax fibre as reinforced material through Resin Transfer Moulding (RTM) process. In ambient temperature, flax fibre contains about 10% moisture and it causes dimensional instability in the profiles due to moisture release in dry condition. To avoid this problem we use economically viable microwave drying system by incorporating halogen lamp microwave combination oven in our experimental design to reduce the moisture of bast fibre before incorporating in polymer matrix. We investigated the mechanical properties, water absorption, and weather resistance properties of these profiles and found it can be used as a construction material for housing industries in North America.

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