Natural libers

Although fibers can be classified in numerous ways, in terms of present-day technology, they are fundamentally classified as(l) natural libers, and (2) synthetic libers. The principal natural fibers are cotton, wool. and. to a much lesser extent, silk. liax. and mohair. Synthetic tihers have made inroads into the use of all natural fibers, bul the greatest impact has occurred in connection with the latter three libers. Cotton continues to be a major textile fiber, measured in terms of billions of pounds used per year. Colton is one of the most versalile of all libers and blends well with synthetics. This is also true of wool, bul lo a somewhat lesser extent. Synthetic Fibers. Introduced in 1910 as a substitute for silk, rayon was the first artificial or synthetic fiber. Rayon, of course, differs completely in chemical constitution from silk. Rayon typifies most reconstituted or synthetic fibers, which perform almost as well and. in a number of respects, far better than their natural counterparts Some of the more recently developed synthetic libers have lilile if any resemblance to naturally available fibers and thus enlirely new types of end-producls with previously unobtainable end-qualities are available,... 

Pal S, Mukhophadhyay D, Sanyal S et al (1988) Studies on process variables for natural liber composites-effect of PEAP as interfacial agent. J Appl Polym Sci 35 973-985... 

Khoathane MC (2005) The processing properties of natural liber reinforced higher a-olefln based thermoplastics. Magister Technology Polymer Technology, pp 1-85... 

Satyanarayana KG, Sukumaran K, Mukherjee PS et al (1990b) Natural liber-polymCT composites. Cement Concrete Compos 12 117-136... 

Fibers for commercial and domestic use are broadly classified as natural or synthetic. The natural libers are vegetable, animal, or mineral in origin. Vegetable fibers, as the name implies, are derived from plants. The principal chemical component in plants is cellulose (qv), and therefore they are also referred to as cellulosic fibers. The fibers are usually boimd by a natural phenolic polymer, lignin (qv), which also is frequently present in the cell wall of the fiber thus, vegetable fibers are also often referred to as lignocellulosic fibers, except for cotton, which does not contain lignin. 

Devareddy and Arbetti [6] have discussed the use of natural liber composites with polypropylene in the automotive industry. They point out that due to their intrinsically superior properties, libers may, in due course, replace glass fibers in may automotive applications. 

Polymer nanocomposites are a radical alternate to conventional polymer composites, where large amount of fillers are added to improve the properties. For polymer composite applications, the use of natural libers are preferred to efiiciently reduce the dependence on petrochemical-based plastics (Thakur et al. 2014d). Natural libers obtained from various plant sources as such or in the form of extracted cellulose have been frequently used for this application (Singa et al. 2009). Cellulose in nanodimensions generated from cellulose libers has much higher mechanical properties than those of natural libers. Hence CNs have attracted a great deal of interest in the polymer nanocomposite field. Due to their nanodimensions. 

Only limited studies on the improvement of the thermal properties of proteins by altering their molecular structure or conformation with the addition of natural libers has been documented in recent literature. 

Wool is another popular natural liber, as is — surprisingly — bamboo. The tall, woody plant can be processed to make a thin, soft fabric, as well as a yam that can be knitted into gloves. 

This chapter is a review on the natural fiber reinforced polymer composites. Natural libers have recently become attractive to researchers, engineers and scientists as an alternative reinforcement for fiber reinforced pol5mier (FRP) composites. Natural fibers can be used as reinforcement in... 

Today s composites are very good in terms of their strength, flexibility, and resistance to chemical attack. They arc primarily composed of glass, carbon, or aramid threads woven on a loom similar to other textiles. Attempts to employ more environmentally friendly repairs have met with mixed success, with the natural libers, primarily hemp derivatives, not meeting the performance characteristics of the mineral libers. 

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