Banana as a source of fiber

Banana, the common name for herbaceous plants of the genus Musa and for the fruit they

produce, is one of the earliest crops planted in the history of human agriculture (Kumar, K. S.,

Bhowmik, et al, 2012). Banana is a unique perennial single harvest plant which means the

pseudostem and leaves dies after it bears fruit once. (Padam, et al, 2014). Preethi (2011) reported

that banana is one of the important fruit crop cultivated in tropical parts of the world and banana

farming generates huge quantity of biomass all of which goes as waste and the above ground

parts like pseudostem and peduncle are the major source of fiber.

As stated by Ortega, et al., (2016), natural fibers have been utilized as a substitute to

synthetic ones for their greener character; banana fibers have the advantage of coming from an

agricultural wastes. Fibers have been extracted by mechanical means from banana tree

pseudostems, as a strategy to evaluate banana crops wastes.

Banana fibers are environmentally friendly and present important attributes, such as low

density, light weight, low cost, high tensile strength, as well as being water and fire resistant.

Mostafa, M., & Uddin, N. (2015)

The natural fiber has multiple uses in preparing numerous value added products and

many handicraft items such as table-mat, bag, wall hangings and other fancy articles, ropes,

craft paper, etc. Banana fiber has also been acknowledge for all its good qualities and now its
application is increasing in other industries such as apparel garments and home furnishings. In

Japan, it is being used for making traditional dresses like kimono and kamishimo due to its being

lightweight and comfortable to wear, it is still preferred by people there as summer wear.

(Vigneswara, et al., 2015)

Kumar, K. S., Bhowmik, D., Duraivel, S., & Umadevi, M. (2012). Traditional and medicinal

uses of banana. Journal of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry, 1(3), 51-63.

Mostafa, M., & Uddin, N. (2015). Effect of banana fibers on the compressive and flexural

strength of compressed earth blocks. Buildings, 5(1), 282-296.

Ortega, Z., Morón, M., Monzón, M. D., Badalló, P., & Paz, R. (2016). Production of banana

fiber yarns for technical textile reinforced composites. Materials, 9(5), 370.

Padam, B. S., Tin, H. S., Chye, F. Y., & Abdullah, M. I. (2014). Banana by-products: an under-

utilized renewable food biomass with great potential. Journal of food science and technology,

51(12), 3527-3545.

Preethi, P. (2011). Physical and chemical properties of banana fibre extracted from commercial

banana cultivars grown in Tamilnadu State.

Vigneswaran, C., Pavithra, V., Gayathri, V., & Mythili, K. (2015). Banana fiber: scope and value

added product development. Journal of Textile and Apparel, technology and management, 9(2).