Renewable and sustainable biobased materials: An assessment on biofibers, biofilms, biopolymers and biocomposites

Highlights

• Comprehensive review on the various aspects of eco-friendly biobased materials.

• Replacement for synthetic materials in the concern of environmental awareness.

• Recent improvements in biofibers, biopolymers, biofilms and biocomposites.

• Outline of the importance of biobased materials for various applications.

Abstract

The current global scenario has a great impact on the development of new bio-based materials due to its vital advantages that are helpful in replacing synthetic and hazardous materials. This perspective review presents the advancement in the processing techniques, characterizations, future scope and methods to overcome the limitations in biofibers, biopolymers, biofilms, and bio composites. This provides vital information on advanced bio-based materials and its composites for their potential usage in biomedical, commercial and engineering sectors to the researchers and scientists. The usage of bio-based materials that are renewable in the field of constructions and engineering will improve the sustainability by reducing wastages, landfills and toxic emissions leading to greener and cleaner environment.

Introduction

Currently apart from energy, environmental issues are vital problem faced by humans and living organisms. Over years, many synthetic products and materials were made to fulfill human needs. These synthetic materials had potential impact on the environment and life causing hazardous effects over land, water, and air (Geyer et al., 2017; Stafford and Jones, 2019). To overcome these life-threatening issues, potential new strategies have to be developed and adapted to conserve the environment. Over the past few decades, more interest was generated to protect the environment which made researchers to show a keen interest in bio-based materials comprising biofibers, biopolymers and bio-composites, thus playing a vital role in replacing synthetic materials (W. Liu et al., 2019b; Mohan and Kanny, 2019a).

Natural fibers are classified as plant, animal and mineral fibers depending upon the source of extraction. These natural fibers are used as reinforcement based upon the application in polymer matrices to form bio-based composites and polymer composites (Mazzanti et al., 2019; Sari et al., 2019). Natural fibers have gained the interest of researchers due to their remarkable properties like low density, low cost, easy availability, biodegradability and easy processing. This also possess considerable mechanical, thermal and good acoustic properties with high fracture resistance. Many studies have reported the usage of natural fibers in polymer composites and bio-based composites as a replacement for synthetic materials. Hence, many industries have stepped forward to revolutionize the usage of bio-based materials (Antunes et al., 2019; Battegazzore et al., 2019; Fombuena et al., 2019; F. Mohammad et al., 2019a).

Over recent years, there was a noticeable increase in the usage of natural fibers, biopolymers, biofilms and bio-based composites in various versatile applications such as aerospace, automotive and household products. Some of the explored aerospace applications are wing boxes, pilot control panel, cabin panels, interior structures, food packages, thermal and acoustic insulators, etc., Many prominent works were carried by Boeing in recycling used biomaterials after the end life of the aircraft (Arockiam et al., 2018). There are many versatile applications of bio-based materials such as furniture, upholstery, interior panels of railway coaches, gardening products, packaging goods, constructions and sports instruments (Abu Bakar et al., 2019; RR. Kumar et al., 2019a; Nagalakshmaiah et al., 2019; Sharma et al., 2019). Due to some limitations of bio-based composites namely compatibility, hydrophilic nature, considerable mechanical strength, these materials are used in light weight-bearing applications and lightweight structures. Increased research and usage of bio-based materials have created a wide demand for bio-based raw materials. This demand made many scientists to identify new sources of bio-renewable materials to prevent the over use of this commodity. It improved the productivity of raw materials by agriculture (cultivating plants), rearing animals and microorganisms. This has various potential positive impact by creating employment opportunities, reducing global warming and greenhouse gasses. The current work provides a clear review on the recent developments and advances in biofibers, biofilms, biopolymers and biocomposites which help the industry and engineering sector to develop advanced bio-based composites for potential applications (Murawski et al., 2019; Payal, 2019; Sanjay et al., 2018).