The dominant emerging materials from more than 30 years ago are plastics, ceramics, and composite materials. Composite materials have steady growth in the volume and number of its applications as it enviably penetrates existing markets while creating new ones. Contemporary composite materials are well established in today's market of specialty and everyday products with its proven worth as weight-saving materials. There is a current challenge of cost-effectiveness and environmental friendliness, thus leading to the search for low-cost polymeric-reinforced composites using entirely biodegradable fibers. Bamboo fibers have provided some response in the production of materials that are recyclable, biodegradable, and sustainable. The natural fibers yield composites with high strength-to-weight ratios as a function of the best properties of each component. Researchers have found sustainable high-end quality industrial products that can be generated from raw materials like bamboo fibers. Due to its high strength-weight ratio, bamboo fibers are often used to replace natural glass fiber. Thus, the much attention has been given to its composites with different matrix materials. This article gives a review of recent developments of bamboo fiber-based reinforced composites, its processing methodology, and applications.

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• 2-stage phase inversion protocol; involving TIPS and controlled evaporation.• Silica is used as an additive to augment permeation performance.• Addition of silica enhanced the fouling resistance remarkably.• Optimum loading of silica particle is required for maximum performance. In this work, a series of cellulose acetate/polyethylene glycol-600 membranes, with varying ratios were prepared by 2-stage phase inversion protocol. The permeation properties were studied by subjecting membranes in indigenously fabricated reverse osmosis plant. After optimization of different CA/PEG ratios, the membrane with highest salt rejection capacity was selected and modified with varying amount of silica. The Modified membranes were characterized for their permeation properties, hydrophilicity, compositional analysis, thermal stability, mechanical strength and morphological studies. Silica significantly influenced the permeation performance of composite membrane. The flux enhanced from 0.35 to 2.46 L/h m 2 along with an 11.41% relative increase in salt rejection. a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f oThe hydrophilicity was significantly enhanced by the addition of silica. In FTIR spectra, the broadening of the peak around 3500 cm −1 and emergence of peak at 950 cm −1 specified the incorporation of silica particles. The thermal analysis indicated the relative increase in degradation temperature (T max ) and glass transition temperature (T g ) for CPS-5 membrane. The mechanical stability of the modified membranes, increased initially, but declined with further addition of silica. The results indicated that the incorporation of SiO 2 content in the casting solution improved the fouling resistance of the membranes.

• Doping of FSP in polymer matrix membrane; involving dissolution casting methodology • FSP is used as an additive to inflate salt rejection properties.• Mechanical properties augmented for PMCM • Uniform dispersion of FSP on PMCM posing dense structure observed in SEM micrographs a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o Novel polymer matrix composite membranes of cellulose acetate (CA)/polyethylene glycol (PEG) doped with 10-30 wt.% fumed silica particles (FSP) were synthesized. The dissolution casting methodology was used to construct reverse osmosis (RO) membrane which accounts the explicit application for desalination process. The interactions between polymer chains and doped FSP were confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR). Differential scanning calorimetry thermograms support the physical nature of polymer matrix composite membranes (PMCMs) and an improved glass transition temperature (T g ) from 78.3 to 92.4°C was observed. The thermal stability of the composite membranes significantly enhanced with the addition of FSP. The typical morphology of PMCM was observed using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The 30 wt.% of FSP filled PMCM showed substantial improvement in tensile strength (8.2 MPa) and Young's modulus (854.0 MPa) as compared to the PMCM without FSP. The percentage water content (WC) of the membrane doped with 30 wt.% FSP absorbed more water as compared to the other membranes. It was also noticed that the FSP doped PMCM enhanced the desalination process which was monitored in terms of permeation flux (L/m 2 ·h) and salt rejection (%). The optimum performance of desalination process was shown by 30 wt.% FSP doped PMCM; the permeation flux was 0.66 L/m 2 ·h and salt rejection was 98.4% for the initial feed of 0.35 wt.% NaCl aqueous solution at 25°C and operating pressure of 4.0 bar (osmotic pressure 2.9 bar).

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