Natural fiber‐reinforced polymer composites (NFRPCs) have emerged as sustainable alternatives to conventional synthetic fiber composites, owing to their low density, renewability, biodegradability, and favorable specific mechanical properties. In the past 5 years, they have demonstrated considerable promise in numerous applications spanning aerospace, automotive, wind energy, rail transit, marine engineering, and sports equipment. This review synthesizes the recent advancements in natural fibers and their polymer composites from 2021 to 2026, covering the classification and extraction of natural fibers, and the fabrication, interface modification, and performance characterization methods of NFRPCs. The current application landscape of NFRPCs is further discussed, including both conventional engineering sectors and emerging frontier domains. Although notable achievements have been made in fiber extraction, surface modification, interface engineering, multifunctional structural design, and performance optimization of specific polymer composites, large‐scale applications remain constrained by several challenges, including interfacial debonding, limited thermal resistance, fiber batch‐to‐batch variability, and long‐term durability. To address these issues, this review suggests that future research should prioritize advanced interface design, green low‐consumption processing technologies, hybrid reinforcement strategies, and multifunctional bio‐based composites. This work aims to provide a resourceful data resource for future research in the efficient extraction and performance regulation of novel natural fibers, as well as for the structural design and performance optimization of NFRPCs.
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Liu et al. (2026) studied this question.
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