**1. Introduction**

Over several years, fiber-reinforced composites have been attracting great interest because of their many superior properties and applications. The well-known fact is that the reinforcement of fibers in different polymers significantly increases the mechanical properties of the composites. Generally, aircraft and automobile industries prefer to use synthetic fibers such as glass and carbon fibers for reinforcement in polymers. In addition, the increasing performance of composites has been identified by advanced research with two or three polymers/reinforcements or fillers. However, the recycling of these composites is difficult due to difficulty for separation of their components. On the other side, these composites cause

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

severe environment issues during the landfills or burning. Most of these composites are made from petroleum-based nonrenewable resources [1]. In order to replace the petroleum-based nonrenewable resource-based composites, the eco-friendly biocomposites need to reduce environmental impact. Generally, biocomposites are formed with one or more phases of reinforcement of natural fibers with organic matrix or biopolymers. These reinforcements (cotton, hemp, flax, sisal, jute, and kenaf or recycled wood and paper) and biopolymers (natural biopolymers such as gelatin, corn zein and soy protein; synthetic biopolymers such as poly(lactic acid) (PLA), poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA); and other microbial fermentation such as microbial polyesters) are renewable and degradable [2, 3]. Meanwhile, in another approach, these biocomposites are formed from the renewable, recyclable, and sustainable agricultural and forestry feedstocks but nor food or feed, this can make better change in an environment dayto-day. Systematically, the utilization of bio-based polymers as a reinforced matrix to form biocomposites increases more and more. The spectacular effect on developments of biopolymer-based composites, which lead the rapid growth of biocomposites in the market place, can be seen. In the duration of 2003–2007, globally the average annual growth rate was 38%. During the same period, the annual growth rate was as high as 48% in Europe. On the other hand, from 2007 to 2013, the capacity of utilization of these biocomposites was projected from 0.36 to 2.33 million metric ton by 2013 and 3.45 million metric ton in 2020. Indeed, PLA, PHA, and starch-based plastics were large volumes of production in biocomposites [4]. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) had sponsored to the Technology Road Map for Plant/Cropbased Renewable Resources 2020. The main intension of this program is to use plant-derived renewable resources for making 10% of basic chemical building blocks by 2020, and further this concept should be extended to achieve 50% by 2050. The U.S. agricultural, forestry, life sciences, and chemical communities have developed a strategic vision for using crops, trees, and agricultural residues to manufacture industrial products, and have identified major barriers to its implementation [5].

The reinforcement of many agricultural and forestry feedstocks with biopolymers comprises change in mechanical, thermal, and biodegradable properties of the composites. This chapter elucidates the properties of renewable biocomposites and their applications.
