Improving Performance and Applicability of Green Composite Materials by Hybridization

The growing concern over environmental issues and the common interest to find a viable alternative to the use of glass or carbon composites reinforced has led to an increased attention about ecologically sustainable polymer composites. These “green” materials are made by natural fibers as reinforce, filled with natural-organic fillers, hence derived from renewable or biodegradable sources. At the same time, this relatively new class of materials faces several limits in comparison to traditional composites especially regarding the proprieties of resistance. This paper investigates the advantages on use a combination of natural fibers for improving the mechanical proprieties of “green” composite materials. At the moment, the common opinion is that green composites are not usable in structural applications, and, as consequence, have to be relegated to unworthy applications (as fillers). On the contrary, there are several evidences that mixing different natural fibers (in a practice usually called as “hybridization”) leads to increase these material proprieties. Even if usually quite limited in term of percentage, from time to time these improvements permit a net enlargement in the fields of applications for green composites. Following a large State of Arts on green composites, including potential benefits and limits of these materials, the paper proposes several examples of hybridization showing its effect on mechanical proprieties.