Last week the “6th International Conference on Innovative Natural Fiber Composites for Industrial Applications“ took place in Rome. The focus of the conference was on novel applications of natural fibers and development of new “green composites” with the aim of analyzing the state of the art in this field in comparison with conventional reinforcements and finding real future applications. TCKT presented two topics: on the one hand, Christoph Burgstaller talked about “Cherry pits as fillers for thermoplastic polypropylene based composites“, showing the reinforcement potential of this otherwise not exploited waste material. On the other hand, Blanca Lekube spoke on “Flax fiber based partially compacted fleece composites” and how this special kind of composites features very good properties also when they are completely bio-based.
Interesting discussions arose during the conference, in which one of the main conclusions was that natural fibers show great potential as reinforcement and further efforts should be made to create greener products in order to contribute to a more sustainable industry. We are looking forward to the next edition in 2019!
