Alternative Natural Fibers for Biocomposites

Abstract

The increasing cognizance of the ecological harm produced by synthetic materials has given rise to the rapid increase in the consumption of environmental-friendly materials. There has been a great upturn in demand for marketable consumption of ecological natural fiber-based composites in several manufacturing industrialized sectors, such as automotive, building construction, furniture, and aerospace in recent years. Natural environment-friendly fibers are renewable resources which are abundant in nature with benefits of low cost, lightweight, renewability, biodegradability, and higher specific characteristic as compared to synthetic materials. The enduring feasibility of natural fiber-based composite materials has increased their usage in several manufacturing sectors. In this chapter, different sources of natural fibers, their characteristics, and morphological structure are discussed in detail. Moreover, the primary use of ecological natural fibers, as well as their effective utilization as reinforcement in polymer composite materials were also summarized.