**Author details**

*Renewable and Sustainable Composites*

summary of some of these patents.

**6. Conclusion**

led to numerous implant failures and lead to investigations to improve mechanical

ers employing natural fiber for biomedical applications and **Table 1** presents a

There have been quite a number of patents registered over the years of research-

The natural fiber polymer composites have gained a lot of ground in terms of acceptance and applications. For these interests to increase continuously, the materials must be designed to meet certain requirements for their specific applicability. For structural applications, the most important property that is of concern is the mechanical properties as they help to predict the behavior of the materials under stress. As discussed in this chapter, NFPCs are being applied in the building and construction works, automobiles, aerospace, packaging, electronics and biomedical devices. The mechanical strength and toughness require by these various industries are quite different and can vary widely from one application to another. Even though the mechanical requirement varies, the factors that determine the mechanical properties are the same. These factors include type of fibers used, source of the fibers, surface treatment and modification carried out on the fibers, type of polymer matrix used (pristine and blended), type of fiber-matrix bond formed, and the internal arrangement which depends on the type of curing treatment after processing or annealing. In addition to this list are the fiber length, fiber orientation and distribution, fiber loading or volume faction, the type of functionality present and the extent of modification. All these factors can be manipulated to give a combination of the right measure of mechanical strength and stiffness or toughness required for the application it is being designed for. The use of compatibilizers and nanoparticles to modify the composites for specific purpose has been widely reported to improve the mechanical properties as well, but proper integrations must be considered. Furthermore, the use of hybrid fibers has also gained wide acceptance because of the improved stiffness and strength owing to the synergy observed in such fiber combination. The possibilities of NFPCs can be best imagined with the right improvement in their mechanical properties and this chapter has highlighted some of these benefits as presented by numerous research investigations across

The financial assistance of the University of Zululand and the National Research

Foundation, South Africa through the South African Research Chair Initiative (SARChI) is hereby acknowledged. OSJ thanks the National Research Foundation (NRF) for a postdoctoral fellowship and funding under South African Research

properties of biomedical devices for diverse applications (**Figure 2**).

**126**

diverse fields.

**Acknowledgements**

Chair for Nanotechnology.

Owonubi J. Shesan1 \* † , Agwuncha C. Stephen2†, Anusionwu G. Chioma3 , Revaprasadu Neerish1 and Sadiku E. Rotimi4,5

1 Department of Chemistry, University of Zululand, Kwadlangezwa, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

2 Department of Chemistry, Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University, Lapai, Nigeria

3 Department of Applied Chemistry, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa

4 Department of Chemical, Metallurgical and Material Engineering, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa

5 Institute of Nano Engineering Research (INER), Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria, South Africa

\*Address all correspondence to: oshesan@gmail.com

† These authors contributed equally.

© 2019 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.
