Recent developments in natural fibre polymer composite materials for interior design applications: an overview from acoustic perspective

Interior design plays an important role in our everyday life as it balances several forms and functions in our surrounding space to provide a leisure and comfortable experience. The design of interior spaces includes several components like furniture, lighting, acoustics, flooring and colour interaction which affects the human and space interaction. This helps in maintaining the mental and physical health of the people using such spaces. Rising concerns about human health and well- being has become a contributing factor in promoting acoustic design to provide a healthy and comfortable environment to the users. Acoustic design is widely used in spaces like theatres, recording room, schools as well as commercial spaces to provide a better soundproof environment. Various materials like wood, MDF, fabric, glass fibres etc. are used for acoustic proofing of the space. For instance, wood and MDF acoustic panels are commonly used in commercial spaces like office cabins or conference rooms as they possess a acoustic co-efficiency of 0.15–0.25 which is optimal for spaces with low acoustic priority. Depending upon the requirement of acoustic insulation in a space, these acoustic panels are used in combination with fabric, polyester PET panels and foam panels to provide a better insulation, as they possess better acoustic co-efficiency ranging between 0.7 and 1.0. Nowadays, as circular is a major concern across the globe, natural fibre composite materials are gaining importance in interior design and are being used in making furniture, panels as well as acoustic proofing materials. Thus, the paper provides an overview about interior design, components of interior spaces and the role of natural fibre polymer composites in interior space design. Further the paper also discusses about the acoustic application of composites in interior space design. Research opportunities are also included in the paper.