**1. Introduction**

The demand for a substitute to resources associated with environmental problems has brought about a strong interest in the use of raw materials and products that are renewable, sustainable and biocompatible. However, a great deal of research and technical work has been devoted to the use of natural plant fibre. Natural plant fibres have unequivocally contributed to economic prosperity and sustainability in our daily lives [1]. Bamboos, in particular, have attracted special attention owing to their awesome properties including and not limited to sustainability, renewability and biodegradability. They present versatile structure produced by physical and mechanical properties and low specific weight [2]. Properties such as appearance, strength and hardness combined with its rapid growth rate and capacity for sustainable harvesting have made bamboo an attractive substitute in different industrial sectors and these have successively created great opportunities for its development [3]. It has been reported

© 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. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. 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.

that the density of bamboo varies from 500 to 800 kg/m3 depending on anatomical structures such as quantity and distribution of fibres around vascular bundles [4], with its maximum density usually obtained from 3 years old culms [5, 6].

Bamboo is a perennial woody grass, which belongs to the family Gramineae and subfamily Bambuseae [7]. It is an evergreen, monocotyledonous (i.e. non-woody) plant, which produces primary shoot without any later secondary growth [8]. It is widely distributed in the world with China as the most extensive bamboo-producing country [9], having a global export volume of 57.3% in 2009 [10] as shown in **Table 1**. Bamboo is found in abundance in Asia and South America [11]. With over 1200 species and 70 genera, bamboo are found in natural forests, semi-exploited stands and vast plantations globally in an area of more than 14 million ha. [8, 12, 13]. Species of bamboo are found in all continents except in Europe [2]. The percentage of world bamboo resources by continent is shown in **Table 2** [14] and the countries with the most abundant bamboo resources are shown in **Table 3** [15]. The area covered by bamboo in Africa has been estimated at 1.5 million ha with about 43 species [10, 16]; that of Myanmar has been estimated at 2.2 million ha and that of India estimated between 3 and 20 million ha [17]. A total of 40 of the 43 species found in Africa are majorly distributed in Madagascar while the remaining 3 species are found in mainland Africa. Ethiopia has over 1 million ha of highland and lowland bamboo resources, which is about 86% of the African bamboo resource that serves as a subsistence material for rural communities [18, 19].

of bamboo have attracted particular attention, not only in paper, textile and food industry but also for construction and reinforcing fibres. In addition, with adequate technology, the stems can be used in the production of cellulose, bio-ethanol and starch [21]. Other bamboo products include bio-methane, flavonoids and functional xylo-oligosaccharides. Some studies have also shown that bamboo resource could be considered as a candidate feedstock of biomass energy for its high growth efficiency [2, 9, 22]. As a cheap lignocellulosic feedstock, bamboo has been adopted for bioenergy production. This adoption is due to its environmental benefits, fast growth and high annual biomass yield. The various uses of bamboo for humans are quite remarkable. Some minor applications include the use of its leaves for medical purposes, fresh

Bamboo, Its Chemical Modification and Products http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76359 27

Bamboo is considered an alternative to wood owing to their excellent qualities in physical and mechanical attributes [23]. It attains maturity in 3 years as compared to wood, which takes almost more than 20 years. After maturity, the tensile strength of bamboo is comparable to that of mild steel [15]. It is one of the fastest growing plants [8]. It can grow in areas that are currently non-productive (e.g. on an eroded slope), and its root structure remains intact after harvest, thus, generating new shoots [24]. Bamboo grows in plains, hilly and high altitude mountainous regions, and in most kinds of soils, except alkaline soils, desert and marsh [25]. According to their morphology, bamboos are broadly divided into monopodial (or running) bamboos with 'leptomorph' rhizome system and sympodial (clumping) bamboos with 'pachymorph' rhizome system. These differences in rhizome systems can be because of their adaptations to climate conditions to which the bamboos belong. As a typical forest plant in the tropical and subtropical area, bamboo forest plays significant roles in its biological characteristics and

edible shoots and culms for timber or as a raw material for pulping [8].

**Country Bamboo resources in percentage**

**Table 3.** Countries with the largest bamboo resources in the world [15].

India 30 China 14 Indonesia 5 Ecuador 4 Myanmar 2 Viet Nam 2 Others 43

**Continent Percentage of bamboo produced**

**Table 2.** Percentage of world bamboo resources by continent [14].

Asia 65 South America 28 Africa 7

Bamboo is a lignocellulosic biomass from which some value-added products can be obtained. Although data on worldwide production of bamboo products are incredibly unreliable, they do not appear in significant commodity databases [8]. Its use varies from domestic household products to industrial applications, from medicine to nutrition and from toys to aircraft production.


It has 1500 recorded uses and a combined value of internal and commercial consumption of around US \$10 billion in the world market [20]. In recent years, the development and utilisation

**Table 1.** Top 10 exporter of bamboo globally in 2009 [10].


**Table 2.** Percentage of world bamboo resources by continent [14].

that the density of bamboo varies from 500 to 800 kg/m3

26 Bamboo - Current and Future Prospects

density usually obtained from 3 years old culms [5, 6].

serves as a subsistence material for rural communities [18, 19].

**Country Volume of global exports (%)**

China 57.3 Indonesia 14.8 Vietnam 4.6 EU-27 3.0 USA 1.7 Philippines 1.6 Thailand 1.0 Singapore 1.0 Myanmar 0.8 Malaysia 0.8

**Table 1.** Top 10 exporter of bamboo globally in 2009 [10].

aircraft production.

such as quantity and distribution of fibres around vascular bundles [4], with its maximum

Bamboo is a perennial woody grass, which belongs to the family Gramineae and subfamily Bambuseae [7]. It is an evergreen, monocotyledonous (i.e. non-woody) plant, which produces primary shoot without any later secondary growth [8]. It is widely distributed in the world with China as the most extensive bamboo-producing country [9], having a global export volume of 57.3% in 2009 [10] as shown in **Table 1**. Bamboo is found in abundance in Asia and South America [11]. With over 1200 species and 70 genera, bamboo are found in natural forests, semi-exploited stands and vast plantations globally in an area of more than 14 million ha. [8, 12, 13]. Species of bamboo are found in all continents except in Europe [2]. The percentage of world bamboo resources by continent is shown in **Table 2** [14] and the countries with the most abundant bamboo resources are shown in **Table 3** [15]. The area covered by bamboo in Africa has been estimated at 1.5 million ha with about 43 species [10, 16]; that of Myanmar has been estimated at 2.2 million ha and that of India estimated between 3 and 20 million ha [17]. A total of 40 of the 43 species found in Africa are majorly distributed in Madagascar while the remaining 3 species are found in mainland Africa. Ethiopia has over 1 million ha of highland and lowland bamboo resources, which is about 86% of the African bamboo resource that

Bamboo is a lignocellulosic biomass from which some value-added products can be obtained. Although data on worldwide production of bamboo products are incredibly unreliable, they do not appear in significant commodity databases [8]. Its use varies from domestic household products to industrial applications, from medicine to nutrition and from toys to

It has 1500 recorded uses and a combined value of internal and commercial consumption of around US \$10 billion in the world market [20]. In recent years, the development and utilisation

depending on anatomical structures

of bamboo have attracted particular attention, not only in paper, textile and food industry but also for construction and reinforcing fibres. In addition, with adequate technology, the stems can be used in the production of cellulose, bio-ethanol and starch [21]. Other bamboo products include bio-methane, flavonoids and functional xylo-oligosaccharides. Some studies have also shown that bamboo resource could be considered as a candidate feedstock of biomass energy for its high growth efficiency [2, 9, 22]. As a cheap lignocellulosic feedstock, bamboo has been adopted for bioenergy production. This adoption is due to its environmental benefits, fast growth and high annual biomass yield. The various uses of bamboo for humans are quite remarkable. Some minor applications include the use of its leaves for medical purposes, fresh edible shoots and culms for timber or as a raw material for pulping [8].

Bamboo is considered an alternative to wood owing to their excellent qualities in physical and mechanical attributes [23]. It attains maturity in 3 years as compared to wood, which takes almost more than 20 years. After maturity, the tensile strength of bamboo is comparable to that of mild steel [15]. It is one of the fastest growing plants [8]. It can grow in areas that are currently non-productive (e.g. on an eroded slope), and its root structure remains intact after harvest, thus, generating new shoots [24]. Bamboo grows in plains, hilly and high altitude mountainous regions, and in most kinds of soils, except alkaline soils, desert and marsh [25].

According to their morphology, bamboos are broadly divided into monopodial (or running) bamboos with 'leptomorph' rhizome system and sympodial (clumping) bamboos with 'pachymorph' rhizome system. These differences in rhizome systems can be because of their adaptations to climate conditions to which the bamboos belong. As a typical forest plant in the tropical and subtropical area, bamboo forest plays significant roles in its biological characteristics and


**Table 3.** Countries with the largest bamboo resources in the world [15].

growth habits. Apart from its socio-economical utilisation, bamboo has many environmental benefits [7]. It has some ecological functions on soil erosion control, water conservation, land rehabilitation, carbon sequestration, etc. In China, bamboo forests are recognised as a massive carbon sink in the global cycles of carbon. They have high potentials in carbon fixation, and this is due to the prediction that the carbon stocks in bamboo stands based on previous data for 2050 may get to 1017.64 Tg C [26] or reach 1138.8 Tg C [27].

hemicelluloses 23% and lignin 26% [37]; bamboo (*Dendrocalamus asper*) with cellulose 41%, hemicelluloses 27% and lignin 27% [38]; Moso bamboo (*Phyllostachys heterocycla*), with cellulose 42–47%, hemicelluloses 22–23% and lignin 23–31% [39]; bamboo, with cellulose 38.4%, hemicelluloses 20.5% and lignin 20.8% [40]; Moso bamboo (*Phyllostachys heterocycla*), with cellulose 37%, hemicelluloses 22% and lignin 24% [41]; bamboo shoots shell fibre (BSSF), with cellulose 23%, hemicelluloses 14% and lignin 11% and bamboo stem and leaf (BSL), with cellulose

Bamboo, Its Chemical Modification and Products http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.76359 29

Many research and technical works have been carried out on the chemical modification of bamboo fibres to improve their properties for specialised applications [43–46]. Chemical mod-

Alkali hydrolysis is a conventional technique. It is a chemical processing raw cellulose fibre to delignify and to remove the amorphous regions. It creates a rough fibre surface, activates hydroxyl groups and improves the fibre tensile strength. This process involves the initial use of an alkali solution (NaOH) to remove not only the cellulosic components but also the noncellulosic components such as hemicellulose, lignin and pectin inside the plant fibre [1]. The alkali-treated fibres are then passed through multi-phase bleaching. Most of the manufacturers use this process as it requires not only a little time to yield the bamboo fibres but also less economic means mainly when compared with mechanical methods. Kumar et al. [47] in their study, soaked bamboo strips in 4% NaOH for 72 h to extract the fibre. This method removed 38–42% of the polysaccharides and lignin from the bamboo chips. The obtained pulp was cooled, filtered and washed, and then further treated with glacial acetic acid. Sodium chlorite was occasionally used to bleach the fibre to white. The treated pulp was called bleached bamboo fibre. The problem with this method was that fibre bundles with diameters of 100 ± 10.4 μm were also formed during the extraction; therefore, the parameters were chosen

to optimise separation of bamboo fibre by using a minimum amount of NaOH [48].

In an exciting study, Kumar et al. [49] reported that the characteristic properties of mercerised bamboo fibres used for the preparation of bamboo fibre-reinforced epoxy composites made the bio composites cost useful for dielectric applications. In another interesting study reported by Kumar and Kumar [50], alkali treatment of bamboo fibre further increased the tensile and flexural strength of bamboo-epoxy nanocomposites by 60 and 42%, respectively,

Many researchers have worked on the physical, mechanical and thermal behaviour (weathering behaviour, % water uptake, % thickness swelling and thermal stability), morphology properties and impact test of bamboo fibres reinforced novolac resin composites prepared using mercerised bamboo fibres. They reported that the modification improved various features such as fine structure, impact strength, wetting ability, interfacial strength, mechanical properties, weathering and thermal properties of the composites [51–53]. The effect of acrylic acidgrafted bamboo rayon on the antibacterial activity of acrylic acid-grafted bamboo rayon silver

ification methods include alkali hydrolysis, acid hydrolysis, coupling, etc.

21%, hemicelluloses 12% and lignin 12% [42].

**3. Chemical modification of bamboo**

as compared to pure composites.

Some studies have revealed bamboo to produce higher biomass yield than other lignocelluloses crops with a growth rate ranging from 30 to 60 cm/day and height of about 36 m in growing season [28]. The aboveground biomass of bamboo in the Philippines was first reported as 146.8 Mg ha−1 year−1 (Suzuki and Jacalne [119]). Nath et al. [29] reported that the total aboveground standing biomass of bamboo in northeast India was 42.98 Mg ha−1 year−1. Hong et al. [30], when comparing the annual biomass yield between bamboo and *Miscanthus* species, reported that of bamboo to range from 5.9 to 49.5 Mg ha−1 year−1 .
