Date Palm Fiber Composites for Automotive Applications

Abstract

Natural fiber composites are being targeted in several industries particularly the automotive industry because of their environmental and economic benefits, driven by the increasing demands for lightweight, low emissions, high fuel efficiency and recyclability in vehicles. The proper utilization of the available natural renewable resources become crucial for producing lightweight and low-cost applications in the automotive industry. Natural fibers like flax, jute, kenaf, coir, hemp, and sisal have achieved great success in reinforcing composites with different types of polymer matrices. They are widely used in automotive interior components such as door panels, seat backs, dashboards, truck liners, headliners, decking. Recently, there is a growing interest in the uses of the date palm tree, which is one of the most essential agriculture crops found abundantly around the world, mainly in the Middle East and North Africa. Huge amounts of date palm trees biomass are accumulated annually without appropriate use. These quantities are of potential interest to be used in many industries to produce alternative cheap sustainable materials. Date palm fibers and the secondary products of the tress such as palm midrib, leaflets, spadix, stem and mesh have been utilized as promising reinforcing fibers in various composites industrial applications with competitive performance. In this regard, this chapter presents the importance of natural fibers based composites in automotive applications and draws attention to adopting date palm fibers composites in the automotive industry, owing to their superior properties that qualify them to produce sustainable added-value products in this major industry.