Biopolymeric conjugation with synthetic fibers and applications

Abstract Presently, several different kinds of polymer composite materials of varying properties have been developed and these composite materials play a vital role in construction and automotive industries. Polymer composites are normally preferred owing to some of their unique properties such as light weight, low cost, good surface finishes, more durability, and non-corrosiveness. But it is a challenge to environmental sustainability, therefore researchers are emphasizing on development of new modified biodegradable polymer composite materials. The biopolymer matrix reinforced by synthetic fibers is a viable alternative, which exhibits adequate mechanical properties and biodegradability. Although various advanced and improved composite materials are developed by using synthetic fibers, natural fibers, and nanoparticles, the use of synthetic fibers as reinforcing material is cost effective and shows improved performance. Among the various kinds of synthetic fibers, normally glass fibers (GF) in the form of short fiber are the most widely used reinforcing material, which is cost effective, provides good impact resistance, stiffness, strength, thermal stability, and chemical resistance. For requirement of high stiffness of the composite material, carbon fibers (CF) are more suitable than GF. Some other synthetic fibers such as aramid (AF), polypropylene fibers (PP-F), polyacrylonitrile fiber (PAN-F), basalt (BF), and polyethylene terephthalate fiber (PET-F) are some cases used as reinforcing material for synthesis of composites. The composite reinforced with synthetic fibers are used as a highly suitable material for manufacturing of various components in cars, space vehicles and railways. Recently some new hybrid composite materials are developed by using both natural and synthetic fibers as reinforcing material, which exhibits dynamic thermal, mechanical properties and potentially suitable from automobile to construction industry. Recently, numerous new biomaterial composite has been developed by using biopolymer as matrix with reinforcement of various kinds of synthetic fibers, which are used as good implant material for tissue engineering applications.