Life Cycle Assessment of Natural Fiber Polymer Composites

Abstract

Widespread environmental awareness towards achieving product sustainability has spurred great efforts in using more environmental-friendly materials in product design. Among the most promising solutions to address the needs is by using natural fibers to reduce the dependence on synthetic fibers as reinforcement and filler materials for polymer composites’ construction. Many efforts have been made to fully quantify the advantages of natural fiber composites (NFC) for diverse applications such as automotive, building materials, and household appliances. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is among the efforts being undertaken related to NFC with the primary aim to determine the overall potential environmental impact of using such materials on the surroundings. Among the major advantages of performing LCA is its capability to provide a more holistic overview of the environmental impact whereby it covers the whole product life cycles from raw material extraction to end-of-life stages, hence enabling justified decisions on the suitability of using NFC for specific applications to be made scientifically. In this chapter, an overview of the LCA method is explained and subsequently followed by description of its applications involving NFC in different applications. The advantages and limitations of the LCA method related to the NFCs are also discussed as well as a final conclusion on the future directions of LCA application for NFC.