Mechanical Properties of Date Palm Fiber Reinforced Polymer Composites: A Review

Nowadays, plant originated fibers have received much attention in many industrial applications, especially infifiber-reinforced composites, due to their potential in solving emerging problems concerning the living environment and shortage of oil resources. Natural fifibers are lightweight, low cost, eco-friendly, renewable and biodegradable, in some cases, therefore, they can be used as alternatives to mineral and glass for production of lightweight composite structures. In recent years, a number of research works have been done on date palm as reinforcing agents in thermoset and thermoplastic composites. These fifibers are usually discarded as agricultural wastes in annual pruning. Therefore, their utilization in composite industry can result in manufacturing cost-effective products. This study is a review on mechanical properties of date palm fifiber reinforced composites studied and published by researchers to date. According to the results, surface modifification of date palm fifibers and improvement in interfacial adhesion increase tensile and flexural properties of the composites reinforced with these fifibers. Also, weight fraction and fifiber distribution are two important factors that influence mechanical properties of the composites. In this work, an attempt is made to collect information and to highlight previous works done in this fifield in order to provide a comprehensive literature for researchers to pave the way in their further studies.