Natural fiber biodegradable composites and nanocomposites: A biomedical application

The growing interest for “green” materials for biomedical applications has increased in recent years. This attention was due to researchers, patients, and the medical world searching for several solutions to their challenges, such as the need to replace, repair, or substitute tissues or organs. In this context, recently tissue engineering has been the focus of the development and application of biodegradable polymers obtained from natural sources (vegetable and animal), for example: collagen, chitosan, chitin, starch, gelatin, alginate, and cellulose. These materials represent a valid alternative to replace and substitute petrochemical products in biomedical applications. However, synthetic aliphatic polymers, such as poly(lactic acid) (PLA), poly(glycolides) (PGA), and poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) have also attracted wide attention for their biocompatibility and biodegradability in the human body and have been extensively studied and characterized to develop medical devices. This chapter reports on the most relevant results about the use of natural fibers or nanofillers extracted from natural fibers as reinforcement phases for the production of composite materials for biomedical applications. The development of composites and nanocomposites has emerged in the last two decades as an efficient approach to upgrade the functional and structural properties of synthetic and/or natural polymers. In addition, the introduction of nanofillers into biodegradable polymers to produce nanocomposites allows preparing a new class of biodegradable materials with enhanced and tuneable thermal, mechanical, and electrical properties.