Advancement in flame retardancy of natural fibre reinforced composites with macro to nanoscale particulates additives

© 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Natural fibre reinforced composites (NFRCs) have been intensively employed in engineering applications and are being recognised as an important alternative to synthetic fibre reinforced composites. The use of natural fibre as reinforcement offers several key advantages such as environmentally friendly, sustainable, biodegradable, high specific mechanical properties, low energy consumption in processing, inexpensive and low pollutant discharge. However, their low resistant to flammability may post serious risks to safety and this remains one of the critical limitations for widespread integration into more demanding applications such as aerospace, automotive, rail and marine industries. This chapter will first outline the conventional composition and properties of NFRC and their limitations which, in turn, provide the motivation for the adoption of macro to nanoscale flame retardant to control flammability. The second section highlights several widely adopted fire safety standards. Strategies on the incorporation of macro to nanoscale flame retardant additives into NFRC along with results and discussion on their effectiveness are presented in the third section. The chapter concludes with summary of the current technologies and future prospect in meeting the flame resistivity of NFRC.