Environmental friendly polymer materials from biorenewable resources play an indispensable role in the present day life. During the last few years, natural fibers and their respective composites have attracted considerable interest because of the ecological concerns, energy crisis and depletion of petroleum-derived materials. Natural fibrous materials derived from biorenewable sources are being envisioned as the most promising materials because of their enormous advantages. Natural fibres offer a number of advantages over their synthetic counterparts such as abundant availability, relatively cheap, low in density, environmentally friendly, acceptable strengthening properties, nonabrasiveness, carbon dioxide sequestration, biodegradability etc. which make them an attractive alternate to traditional reinforcement. Natural fibres are often referred to as vegetable fibres extracted from different plants/ trees and are classified into different categories, depending on the part of the plants/ trees they are extracted from. The growth of natural fibrous materials and their composite materials should be welcomed by the research community. This book contains 17 chapters organized into a systematic manner. Each chapter contains distinctive information on a particular natural fiber as well as its composites. It also covers different aspects of natural fibers starting from processing to applications followed by the deep understanding of issues related to the structure-processing-properties relationship in natural fibers reinforced polymer composites. This book contains the latest developments in the area of natural fibers reinforced composites and will become an important reference for any course in the field of natural fibers or composites. This book is targeted for multidisciplinary undergraduate/ postgraduate students, and researchers in the natural fibers, polymer and materials science field. It provides a good overview of natural fibers and polymer composites for beginners, students, scientists, engineers as well as specialists of an area who would like to know more about natural fibrous materials.

By Vijay Kumar Thakur and James Njuguna