Composites have been found to be the most promising and discerning material available in this century. Presently, composites reinforced with fibers of synthetic or natural materials are gaining more importance as demands for lightweight materials with high strength for specific applications are growing in the market. Fiber-reinforced polymer composite offers not only high strength to weight ratio, but also reveals exceptional properties such as high durability; stiffness; damping property; flexural strength; and resistance to corrosion, wear, impact, and fire. These wide ranges of diverse features have led composite materials to find applications in mechanical, construction, aerospace, automobile, biomedical, marine, and many other manufacturing industries. Performance of composite materials predominantly depends on their constituent elements and manufacturing techniques, therefore, functional properties of various fibers available worldwide, their classifications, and the manufacturing techniques used to fabricate the composite materials need to be studied in order to figure out the optimized characteristic of the material for the desired application. An overview of a diverse range of fibers, their properties, functionality, classification, and various fiber composite manufacturing techniques is presented to discover the optimized fiber-reinforced composite material for significant applications. Their exceptional performance in the numerous fields of applications have made fiber-reinforced composite materials a promising alternative over solitary metals or alloys.

/pdf/fiber-reinforced-polymer-composites-manufacturing-properties-f0ipegmttq.pdf

Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Composites: Manufacturing, Properties, and Applications.

There has been much effort to provide eco-friendly and biodegradable materials for the next generation of composite products owing to global environmental concerns and increased awareness of renewable green resources. This review article uniquely highlights the use of green composites from natural fiber, particularly with regard to the development and characterization of chitosan, natural-fiber-reinforced chitosan biopolymer, chitosan blends, and chitosan nanocomposites. Natural fiber composites have a number of advantages such as durability, low cost, low weight, high specific strength, non-abrasiveness, equitably good mechanical properties, environmental friendliness, and biodegradability. Findings revealed that chitosan is a natural fiber that falls to the animal fiber category. As it has a biomaterial form, chitosan can be presented as hydrogels, sponges, film, and porous membrane. There are different processing methods in the preparation of chitosan composites such as solution and solvent casting, dipping and spray coating, freeze casting and drying, layer-by-layer preparation, and extrusion. It was also reported that the developed chitosan-based composites possess high thermal stability, as well as good chemical and physical properties. In these regards, chitosan-based “green” composites have wide applicability and potential in the industry of biomedicine, cosmetology, papermaking, wastewater treatment, agriculture, and pharmaceuticals.

/pdf/natural-fiber-reinforced-chitosan-chitosan-blends-and-their-17t2x7ua.pdf

Natural-Fiber-Reinforced Chitosan, Chitosan Blends and Their Nanocomposites for Various Advanced Applications

The use of alternative raw materials such as agricultural biomass and recycled wood waste and by-products in particleboard production is a viable approach to respond to the increased global demand for wood-based materials, and it is a key circular economy principle as well. Wood chips are the second most costly element after resin in particleboard production, where both elements accounting for more than 50% of the overall production cost. Therefore, a significant cost reduction could be achieved by replacing wood chips with lignocellulosic agricultural wastes. Agricultural biomass exists in abundant post-harvest and post-production processes and can be served as an ideal alternative for particleboard manufacturing. This study aimed to review and evaluate the current state-of-the-art particleboard production using a wide variety of environmentally-friendly agricultural biomass, recycled wood waste, and by-products. In this review, the agricultural biomass used for particleboard production was classified into seven different groups based on the part of the plant which they are extracted from, i.e. straw, stalk, bagasse, seed/fruit, leaf, grass, and palms. Particleboards' properties of these raw materials were also compared in terms of their mechanical parameters. The last part of this review concluded the challenges and future potential of using agricultural biomass and recycled wood waste. 

Particleboard from Agricultural Biomass and Recycled Wood Waste: A Review

In this study, okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) bast fibers and corn (Zea mays L.) husk fibers were extracted via different degumming methods and subjected to different chemical treatments including a...

Effects of chemical treatments and degumming methods on physical and mechanical properties of okra bast and corn husk fibers

Woven jute fabric was used as a reinforcing material for making two types of composite, named Jute/PR and Jute/Epoxy, with two different matrixes of polyester resin and epoxy, respectively, by hand layup techniques. Five different doses of gamma radiation from 100 to 500 krad were used to investigate the effects of the mechanical properties of the composites and the jute fabrics. Though gamma radiation improved the mechanical properties, such as the tensile strength (TS) and Young’s modulus (Y), and decreased the elongation at break % (Eb%) of the composites, it deteriorated all these properties for jute fabrics. The highest values of TS and Y and the lowest value of Eb% were found to be 39.44 Mpa, 1218.33 Mpa, and 7.68% for the Jute/PR; and 48.83 Mpa, 1459.67 Mpa, and 3.68% for the Jute/Epoxy composites, respectively, at a 300 krad gamma radiation dose. A further increase in dose altered all these properties; thus, 300 krad was found to be the optimum dose for both of the composites. Between the two composites, gamma radiation influenced the Jute/PR composite more than the Jute/Epoxy composite.

https://www.mdpi.com/2079-6439/8/9/58/pdf

Influence of Gamma Radiation on Mechanical Properties of Jute Fabric-Reinforced Polymer Composites

In this study, the jute reeds were equally divided lengthwise from root to tip in three portions namely root, middle and tip. The fibre diameter, fineness, tensile strength and bundle stren...

Lengthwise jute fibre properties variation and its effect on jute–polyester composite

Cotton fabric was coated with aqueous dispersion containing blend of natural rubber latex (NRL), polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) and starch following a knife-over-roll technique to produce moisture vapour permeable waterproof coating. Coating of cotton with a formulation containing NRL, 15% aqueous PVA and tamarind kernel seed powder as starch, in the ratio of 1:3: 0.3 in presence of a typical sulphur curing system, followed by drying of the coated fabric at 95 °C for 5 min and subsequent vulcanization at 120 °C for 2 h produced most balanced improvements in the properties of the coated fabric such as, waterproofness, breathability as revealed by moisture vapour transmission rate, coating adhesion, tensile properties, abrasion resistance and flex endurance. Incorporation of PVA makes the coating permeable to moisture vapour and such property is promoted further in presence of starch in the coating formulation. Examination of surface morphology of vulcanized coating by scanning electron microscopy revealed...

Development of moisture vapour permeable waterproof cotton fabric by coating with blend of natural rubber latex and polyvinyl alcohol

In the present study, long staple lignocellulosic fibres were extracted from the arecanut leaf sheath, an agricultural biomass. The arecanut leaf sheath (ANLS) fibres have been extracted by alkali ...

Characterization of lignocellulosic fibres extracted from agricultural biomass: arecanut leaf sheath

Arecanut leaf sheath (ANLS) an unexplored agricultural biomass is used to recover long staple lignocellulosic fibers. A long staple lignocellulosic fiber is extracted from ANLS biomass using 8% NaO...

Fabrication, microstructural and mechanical properties of arecanut leaf sheath fibre reinforced polyester resin composites

Cotton yarns were modified with pyrrole in the presence of ferric chloride following a dip-nip-dry technique. Treatment of cotton with 23.4% aqueous pyrrole followed by treatment with 40.6% aqueous ferric chloride and subsequent drying in atmospheric air produced balanced improvements in the properties of the yarn such as conductivity, tensile strength and extensibility. Among the three types of yarns such as ring spun, rotor spun and friction spun considered for such treatment, ring spun yarn performed best in respect of conductivity and retention of strength. Examination of surface morphology of yarns by scanning electron microscopy revealed a common discontinuity in the growth of polypyrrole along the length of the yarns spun using friction spinning and rotor spinning systems. Such discontinuity was caused by the wrapper fibres. Ring spun yarn, on the other hand, allowed a continuous spiral growth and deposition of polypyrrole in the inter-fibre space and on the surface of the yarn. Study of py...

Atin Chaudhuri

Papers

Lengthwise jute fibre properties variation and its effect on jute–polyester composite

Development of moisture vapour permeable waterproof cotton fabric by coating with blend of natural rubber latex and polyvinyl alcohol

Characterization of lignocellulosic fibres extracted from agricultural biomass: arecanut leaf sheath

Fabrication, microstructural and mechanical properties of arecanut leaf sheath fibre reinforced polyester resin composites

Development of biodegradable conductive cotton yarns by in-situ polymerisation of pyrrole