Advances in Bamboo Composites for Structural Applications: A Review

The fastest-growing plant on earth is bamboo; it grows three times as quickly as most other species and is a renewable, adaptable resource with high strength and lightweight. Bamboos are a valuable alternative resource with high physical similarities with genuine hardwoods. Using these naturally available renewable bamboo resources provides a practical approach to an eco-friendly industry mainly based on green materials and sustainable technologies with minimum impact on nature. In this regard, developing advanced bamboo-based composites is an attractive step. The extensive use of bamboo composites is a result of their advantageous qualities, including dimensional stability, natural colour, exquisite texture, and ease of manufacturing. The bamboo-based composites have immense potential to perform as a wood substitute that can reduce timber import and meet future timber requirements that are presently fulfilled by cutting trees or importing timber. This chapter aims to exhibit these advanced bamboo composites as a competitive and sustainable substitution for conventional timber material for structural applications. The present chapter highlights the advanced bamboo composites as engineered materials utilised mainly for structural applications in housing sectors and construction industries in the form of standard regular shapes such as beams, planks, lumbers, truss elements etc. One of the sections would be dedicated to the future scope of these advanced bamboo composites and recommendations

Advanced X-ray shielding and antibacterial smart multipurpose fabric impregnated with polygonal shaped bismuth oxide nanoparticles in carbon nanotubes via green synthesis

Synthesis of multifunctional hybrid materials for X-rays’ attenuation is attracting more recognition recently because of several superiorities over the conventional radiation shielding materials made using toxic lead-based compounds. For the first time*, the present study investigates the microwave irradiation based green synthesis and in-situ stabilization of bismuth oxide (Bi2O3) nanoparticles on multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) by a novel approach for making advanced material. TEM and XRD studies have shown that nanoparticles have a uniform size with polygonal morphology and are impregnated on MWCNT. The developed hybrid nanocomposite's physical appearance is gel-like. It was then applied on a cotton fabric piece to create a multifunctional material and valuable for the fabrications of aprons, bandages, and X-ray shielding caskets. The porous nature of cotton fabric has facilitated the adhesion and stabilization of the nanocomposite. The elemental composition and topology of the hybrid material were further analyzed by XPS, EDX and AFM studies, respectively. The higher attenuation characteristics and shielding efficiency of the developed material are due to the dual shielding effect of polygonal nanoparticles and MWCNT. Availability of metal atoms with higher valency allowed the higher photoelectric effect followed by the Compton effect during X-ray shielding