5 - Surface modification of natural fibers

Abstract

Natural fibers are fibrous polymeric composite materials obtained from natural renewable sources, namely plants and animals. The ever-growing environmental, ecological, and economical concerns lead to increased acceptance of natural fibers in every areas of conventional synthetic material application. This is due to biodegradability, nontoxicity, combustibility, easy availability, nonabrasiveness, light self-weight, low cost, good specific strength, and great corrosion as well as fatigue resistance, etc. of natural fibers. Despite these advantages, natural fibers suffering with some drawbacks such as great water sensitivity, poor melting temperature, inferior adhesion to other materials, and so on. In this respect, the surface modification of natural fibers received vast research interest to conquer these drawbacks. This chapter discusses the available research studies on surface modification of various natural fibers such as cotton fibers, flax fibers, hemp fibers, jute fibers, ramie fibers, kenaf fibers, bamboo fibers, coir fibers, oil palm fibers, sisal fibers, other lignocellulosic plant fibers, silk fibers, and wool fibers.