Natural Fibre based composites

Natural fibres have been used to reinforce building materials since the dawn of civilisation. The earliest applications date back to 10 000 bc in China, where shards of pottery have been found to contain fragments of hemp fibre (Rowell, 2008). During the nineteenth century, before the invention of modern resins and plastics, there were examples of composite materials reinforced with natural fibres. During the 1850s in America, for instance, shellac was being compounded with wood flour to produce union cases used to display early photographs (Stubbs, 2009). At around the same time in France, Francois Charles Lepage combined albumen and wood flour to produce a composite material that he called ¿Bois Durci¿ (¿hardened wood¿).