Usage of Natural Fibre Composites for Sustainable Material Development: Global Research Productivity Analysis

Abstract

Natural-fibre-reinforced composites (NFRCs) are revolutionising the way materials are used for various purposes, and they have enriched applications from aerospace to concrete. In tandem with these works, sustainable materials that are eco-friendly and possess strength and endurance are rapidly replacing conventional materials. Recent decades have shown that many exuberant, curious-minded researchers are working on this particular domain, creating numerous materials for a variety of applications. What exactly is being performed in the laboratory is not being carried out in the field and duly disseminated. The major constraint is knowledge sharing and bottlenecks involved in assessing that research. Scientometrics is a field providing access to the consolidated research landscape report on a particular topic informing research on what work is being performed, how it is performed, who performs it, and what is the future scope. In this work, we analyse the research works, trends, and challenges related to NFRCs for engineering applications. It is found that research works, and the utilisation related to NFRCs, have soared in the last two decades, which proves to be a promising area to work upon. We use the Scopus database for the analysis, and scientometric analysis is carried over with biblioshiny. We find that there is a decreasing trend in publications (−12.74%/year); 272 sources are involved with 1690 documents published containing 5554 authors with 54 single-authored documents. There are 3919 keywords involved with 16.51 average citations received for the documents published. This work can be used to understand the research trend and also to take up newer research.