Over the last decade, the progressive application of natural fibres in polymer composites has had a major effect in alleviating environmental impacts. Recently, there is a growing interest in the development of green materials in a woven form by utilising natural fibres from lignocellulosic materials for many applications such as structural, non-structural composites, household utilities, automobile parts, aerospace components, flooring, and ballistic materials. Woven materials are one of the most promising materials for substituting or hybridising with synthetic polymeric materials in the production of natural fibre polymer composites (NFPCs). These woven materials are flexible, able to be tailored to the specific needs and have better mechanical properties due to their weaving structures. Seeing that the potential advantages of woven materials in the fabrication of NFPC, this paper presents a detailed review of studies related to woven materials. A variety of factors that influence the properties of the resultant woven NFRC such as yarn characteristics, fabric properties as well as manufacturing parameters were discussed. Past and current research efforts on the development of woven NFPCs from various polymer matrices including polypropylene, polylactic acid, epoxy and polyester and the properties of the resultant composites were also compiled. Last but not least, the applications, challenges, and prospects in the field also were highlighted.

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/13/3/471/pdf

A Comprehensive Review on Advanced Sustainable Woven Natural Fibre Polymer Composites

The objective of this work is to find the influence of fiber content, stacking pattern, and their sequence on the mechanical properties of hybrid composites Hybrid composites in four varieties wit

Influence of Stacking Sequence and Fiber Content on the Mechanical Properties of Natural and Synthetic Fibers Reinforced Penta-Layered Hybrid Composites

Soil is a complex structure and contains mainly five major components i.e. mineral matter, water, air, organic matter and living organisms. The quantity of these components in the soil does not remain the same but varies with the locality. Soil possesses not only a nucleus position for existence of living being but also ensures their future existence. Therefore, it is essential to make an adequate land management to maintain the quality of soil in both rural and urban soil. The presence of different kinds of heavy metals such as Cd, Cu, Mn, Bi and Zn etc. in trace or in minimum level is a natural phenomenon but their enhanced level is an indicator of the degree of pollution load in that specific area. The precise knowledge of these kinds of heavy metals, their forms and their dependence on soil provides a genuine base for soil management. The heavy metals have potent cumulative properties and toxicity due to which they have a potential hazardous effect not only on crop plants but also on human health. The metal contaminants can be reduced by immobilization of contaminants using macrophytes and also by using genetically engineered microorganisms.

Scenario of heavy metal contamination in agricultural soil and its management. A. K. Chopra, Chakresh Pathak and G. Prasad

Enhancement of impact toughness and damage behaviour of natural fibre reinforced composites and their hybrids through novel improvement techniques: A critical review

The automotive and aerospace industries are in continuous struggle towards the development of lightweight components to improve fuel efficiency. Thermoplastic matrix composites offer distinct advantages in terms of weight reduction, recyclability, specific strength, corrosion resistance, cost-efficiency, and design versatility. Natural fibres owing to their biodegradability, abundance in nature, and low cost not only expand the scope of these materials but also curtail the dependency on petroleum-based products. This review presents a comprehensive state of the art in natural fibres properties; mainly plant fibres, and their use as composite reinforcement followed by the textile technologies used to fabricate the engineered architectures. The review also covers the properties of commonly available thermoplastic matrices and the composite fabrication techniques to enable the selection of the precise material and process for any specific product development. Finally, the mechanical properties of natural fibre reinforced thermoplastic composites are reviewed and the key challenges that need to be dealt with are highlighted.

Environmental benign natural fibre reinforced thermoplastic composites: A review

Continuous natural fibre reinforced thermoplastic composite materials not only offer low weight and better strength than short fibre reinforced composites but are also biodegradable and eco-friendly. The impregnation of resin into the reinforcement is considered as a major concern during the fabrication of thermoplastic composites. Therefore, intermediate materials known as comingled fabrics were developed to assist the fabrication of continuous fibre reinforced thermoplastic composites by aligning the polypropylene fibres alongside the reinforcement natural fibres (jute, hemp and flax) using weaving and knitting techniques. Cross-ply composite panels were fabricated using hot press compression moulding method. The novelty of this work is the simplified methodology to develop the comingled fabrics and the effects of comingling on the mechanical properties of composites. The effect of the comingling technique on the tensile, flexural and impact properties of composites is explained in this research work. Knitted comingled composite specimens exhibit superior mechanical properties than woven comingled composite specimens. The experimental results have shown 14%, 7% and 3% increase in tensile strength, 25%, 20% and 13% increase in flexural strength and 37%, 54% and 44% increase in impact strength of knitted comingled specimens of jute, hemp and flax respectively.

Effect of comingling techniques on mechanical properties of natural fibre reinforced cross-ply thermoplastic composites

Thermoplastic natural fiber reinforced composites are particularly attractive and ideal materials for weight critical applications, but the high melt-viscosity of the matrix hinders their full prospective utilisation. Commingled fabrics have evolved as an alternative solution to overcome the viscosity constrain and reduce the manufacturing cost by means of faster lay-up. A comparative performance evaluation was conducted in this research work on natural fibre-reinforced (jute, hemp and flax) laminates fabricated using woven, woven commingled and knitted commingled fabric architectures along with polypropylene matrix by compression moulding method. The damage behaviour of the fabricated laminates was assessed in terms of short-beam shear (SBS), drop weight impact and compression after impact (CAI) strength. The result shows that knitted commingled laminates exhibited higher SBS strength (up to 29% and 20%) and compression after impact strength (up to 37.9% and 25.3%) compared to the woven and woven commingled laminates. Nonetheless, the woven laminates ensure higher impact resistance owing to the interlacement of fibres compared to that of knitted and woven commingled laminates.

Effect of fabric architecture on the shear and impact properties of natural fibre reinforced composites

With the implementation of the Internet of Things, the agricultural domain has become data-driven, allowing for well-timed and cost-effective farm management while remaining environmentally sustainable. Thus, the incorporation of Internet of Things in the agricultural domain is the need of the hour for developing countries whose gross domestic product primarily depends on the farming sector. It is worth highlighting that developing nations lack the infrastructure for precision agriculture; therefore, it has become necessary to come up with a methodological paradigm which can accommodate a complete model to connect ground sensors to the compute nodes in a cost-effective way by keeping the data processing limitations and constraints in consideration. In this regard, this review puts forward an overview of the state-of-the-art technologies deployed in precision agriculture for soil assessment and pollutant monitoring with respect to heavy metal in agricultural soil using various sensors. Secondly, this manuscript illustrates the processing of data generated from the sensors. In this regard, an optimized method of data processing derived from cloud computing has been shown, which is called edge computing. In addition to this, a new model of high-performance-based edge computing is also shown for efficient offloading of data with smooth workflow optimization. In a nutshell, this manuscript aims to open a new corridor for the farming sector in developing nations by tackling challenges and providing substantial consideration.

Smart Sensing with Edge Computing in Precision Agriculture for Soil Assessment and Heavy Metal Monitoring: A Review

Natural fibre reinforced polymer (NFRP) composites are emerging as a viable alternative to metal parts for lightweight components in the automotive and aerospace industry. They are economical and eco-friendly, but their use is confined due to their performance properties. Currently, fillers are often incorporated in NFRP composites to modify their properties. This study explores the reinforcing effects of hollow glass microspheres (HGM) as fillers in continuous NFRP composites. Continuous NFRP laminates were fabricated using woven fabrics (jute, hemp, flax, polypropylene) and HGM with compression moulding. Tensile, flexural and impact tests were conducted to investigate the influence of HGM on the mechanical properties of these laminates. The results indicate that the loading of 1.5 % HGM improves the tensile and flexural properties, but further addition of HGM (3 %) leads to a decline in these properties; furthermore, the impact strength was significantly improved (17 %, 8 %, 24 %) in jute, hemp and flax laminates, respectively by the addition of 3 % HGM.

Habib Awais

Papers

Environmental benign natural fibre reinforced thermoplastic composites: A review

Effect of comingling techniques on mechanical properties of natural fibre reinforced cross-ply thermoplastic composites

Effect of fabric architecture on the shear and impact properties of natural fibre reinforced composites

Smart Sensing with Edge Computing in Precision Agriculture for Soil Assessment and Heavy Metal Monitoring: A Review

Mechanical Properties of Continuous Natural Fibres (Jute, Hemp, Flax) Reinforced Polypropylene Composites Modified with Hollow Glass Microspheres