Sugar palm tree is a member of the Palmae family and naturally a forest species.51It belongs to the subfamily Arecoideae and tribe Caryoteae.525 Hyene54 reported that sugar palm have approximately around 150 local names indicating its multiple uses by the villagers. The names includes, Arengapinnata, Areng palm, Black fiber palm, Gomuti palm, Aren, Irok, Bagot and Kaong. In Malaysia, it is known as either enau or kabung. Sugar palm plant was originally from Assam, India and Burma. It origi­nates from an area covering South East Asia up to Irian Jaya in the east of Indonesia. Sugar palm tree are widespread to Malaysia, Indonesia and other South East Asian countries. It is one of the most diverse multipurpose tree species in culture.

Malaysia as a tropical country has ample resources of natural fibers. One of those abundant natural fibers found in Malaysia but has not been widely used in the field of reinforcement is the sugar palm fiber.3 This fiber is traditionally used by the local people to make brooms, brushes, septic tank base filter, door mats, carpet, chair/ sofa cushion, and rope. Although the fiber is popular among locals to have high strength and stiffness, little research has been conducted up to date on the full potential of sugar palm fibers and their composites.3 55 58 Another attractive potential of sugar palms is their ability to produce biopolymers (i. e., starch). The starch ob­tained from the trunks of sugar palm trees can be use to make biodegradable poly­mer which in turn can be reinforced with natural fibers to make green composites. This composite possesses the advantage of being renewable, biodegradable, abun­dantly available (especially in tropical countries like Malaysia) and inexpensive as such they have a promising future in the field of biocomposite materials. Figure 9.11 shows the image of sugar palm fiber and sugar palm starch.