Progress Report on Natural Fiber Reinforced Composites

Abstract

This century has witnessed remarkable achievements in green technology in material science through the development of natural fiber reinforced composites. The development of high performance engineering products made from natural resources is increasing worldwide day by day. There is increasing interest in materials demonstrating efficient use of renewable resources. Nowadays, more than ever, companies are faced with opportunities and choices in material innovations. Due to the challenges of petroleumbased products and the need to find renewable solutions, more and more companies are looking at natural fiber composite materials. The primary driving forces for new biocomposite materials are the cost of natural fibers (currently priced at onethird of the cost of glass fiber or less), weight reduction (these fibers are half the weight of glass fiber), recycling (natural fiber composites are easier to recycle) and the desire for green products. This Review provides an overview of natural fiber reinfocred composites focusing on natural fiber types and sources, processing methods, modification of fibers, matrices (petrochemical and renewable), and their mechanical performance. It also focuses on future research, recent developments and applications and concludes with key issues that need to be resolved. This article critically summarizes the essential findings of the mostly readily utilized reinforced natural fibers in polymeric composite materials and their performance from 2000 to 2013.

Polyhydroxybutyrate Composites with Random Mats of Sisal and Coconut Fibers

“…Monteiro et al 68 also calculated the aspect ratio of coconut fibers resulting a value of 572 µm much higher than that found in this study. Thus, it can be seen that the diameter and the aspect ratio of natural fibers such as coconut and sisal vary due to different crops species, soil, climate, and others parameters 69 that explain the variation of the results.…”

Biocomposites reinforced with natural fibers:thermal, morphological and mechanical characterization

“…Coupling agents as maleic anhydride, for example, can improve the matrix/fiber interaction, by modifying the fiber surface or the matrix [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8]. When properly compounded natural fibers make good candidates to replace currently used glass fiber as reinforcing agent, in addition to that, they are abundant and renewable and can be generally considered as biodegradable and non-toxic.…”

“…When properly compounded natural fibers make good candidates to replace currently used glass fiber as reinforcing agent, in addition to that, they are abundant and renewable and can be generally considered as biodegradable and non-toxic. In products for the automotive market, they are often used combined with a polypropylene matrix, which has low cost and processing temperature, in order to guarantee the thermal stability [5,[8][9][10]. This study aims to evaluate the mechanical, morphological and thermal behavior of composite thermoplastic polymer matrix of homopolymer polypropylene, reinforced with six different types of natural fibers, with and without the use of polypropylene grafted with maleic an-hydride as coupling agent.…”

Sugar Palm Fibre and its Composites: A Review of Recent Developments

“…When these drawbacks are resolved, natural fibres will be the leading reinforcement fillers in the field of composite materials because of their competitive advantages. (Faruk et al 2014;Senwitz et al 2016) The most worrisome drawback of natural fibre composite is lack of interfacial adhesion between the filler and the polymeric matrix. In a given composite, the matrix has a role of transferring the load to the reinforced fibre through shear stresses at the interface of the matrix and fibre.…”