Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), a novel pneumonia disease originating in Wuhan, was confirmed by the World Health Organization on January 12, 2020 before becoming an outbreak in all countries. Outbreak situation: A stringent screening process at all airports in Malaysia was enforced after the first case outside China was reported in Thailand. Up to April 14, 2020, Malaysia had reported two waves of COVID-19 cases, with the first wave ending successfully within less than 2 months. In early March 2020, the second wave occurred, with worrying situations. Actions taken: The Government of Malaysia enforced a Movement Control Order starting on March 18, 2020 to break the chain of COVID-19. The media actively spread the hashtag #stayhome. Nongovernmental organizations, as well as prison inmates, started to produce personal protective equipment for frontliners. Various organizations hosted fundraising events to provide essentials mainly to hospitals. A provisional hospital was set up and collaborations with healthcare service providers were granted, while additional laboratories were assigned to enhance the capabilities of the Ministry of Health. Economic downturn: An initial financial stimulus amounting to RM 20.0 billion was released in February 2020, before the highlighted PRIHATIN Package, amounting to RM 250 billion, was announced. The PRIHATIN Package has provided governmental support to society, covering people of various backgrounds from students and families to business owners.

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Natural plant fibre composites have been developed for the production of a variety of industrial products, with benefits including biodegradability and environmental protection. Bamboo fibre materials have attracted broad attention as reinforcement polymer composites due to their environmental sustainability, mechanical properties, and recyclability, and they can be compared with glass fibres. This review classifies and describes the various procedures that have been developed to extract fibres from raw bamboo culm. There are three main types of procedures: mechanical, chemical and combined mechanical and chemical extraction. Composite preparation from extracted bamboo fibres and various thermal analysis methods are also classified and analysed. Many parameters affect the mechanical properties and composite characteristics of bamboo fibres and bamboo composites, including fibre extraction methods, fibre length, fibre size, resin application, temperature, moisture content and composite preparation techniques. Mechanical extraction methods are more eco-friendly than chemical methods, and steam explosion and chemical methods significantly affect the microstructure of bamboo fibres. The development of bamboo fibre-reinforced composites and interfacial adhesion fabrication techniques must consider the type of matrix, the microstructure of bamboo and fibre extraction methods.

The aim of the present research work is to enhance the thermal and dynamic mechanical properties of Kevlar/Cocos nucifera sheath (CS)/epoxy composites with graphene nano platelets (GNP). Laminates were fabricated through the hand lay-up method followed by hot pressing. GNP at different wt.% (0.25, 0.5, and 0.75) were incorporated with epoxy resin through ultra-sonication. Kevlar/CS composites with different weight ratios (100/0, 75/25, 50/50, 25/75, 0/100) were fabricated while maintaining a fiber/matrix weight ratio at 45/55. Thermal degradation and viscoelastic properties were evaluated using thermogravimetric analysys (TGA), differential scanning calorimetric (DSC) analysis, and a dynamic mechanical analyser (DMA). The obtained results revealed that Kevlar/CS (25/75) hybrid composites at 0.75 wt.% of GNP exhibited similar thermal stability compared to Kevlar/epoxy (100/0) composites at 0 wt.% of GNP. It has been corroborated with DSC observation that GNP act as a thermal barrier. However, DMA results showed that the Kevlar/CS (50/50) hybrid composites at 0.75 wt.% of GNP exhibited almost equal viscoelastic properties compared to Kevlar/epoxy (100/0) composites at 0 wt.% GNP due to effective crosslinking, which improves the stress transfer rate. Hence, this research proved that Kevlar can be efficiently (50%) replaced with CS at an optimal GNP loading for structural applications.

The utilization of nanocellulose has increasingly gained attentions from various research fields, especially the field of polymer nanocomposites owing to the growing environmental hazardous of petroleum based fiber products. Meanwhile, the searching of alternative cellulose sources from different plants has become the interests for producing nanocellulose with varying characterizations that expectedly suit in specific field of applications. In this content the long and strong bast fibers from plant species was gradually getting its remarkable position in the field of nanocellulose extraction and nanocomposites fabrications. This review article intended to present an overview of the chemical structure of cellulose, different types of nanocellulose, bast fibers compositions, structure, polylactic acid (PLA) and the most probable processing techniques on the developments of nanocellulose from different bast fibers especially jute, kenaf, hemp, flax, ramie and roselle and its nanocomposites. This article however more focused on the fabrication of PLA based nanocomposites due to its high firmness, biodegradability and sustainability properties in developed products towards the environment. Along with this it also explored a couple of issues to improve the processing techniques of bast fibers nanocellulose and its reinforcement in the PLA biopolymer as final products.