Wise development of agricultural biomass within prudential excellence should have some elements to ensure that the sustainability of the environment with other living thing is not affected in terms of quality and quantity. Elements of ecology, economy and technology as shown in Fig. 5.12 are determined based on the importance and the effectiveness of the product life cycle, processes and properties of raw material from excellent research by scientists.

Environmental issues often become a hot topic of the international community every year since rapid urbanization has resulted in the loss of conventional raw materials due to lack of natural resources. The world is confronted with serious environmental hazard problems such as environmental pollution, global warming, greenhouse gas emissions, ozone depletion, acid rain, extinction of habitat, flora and fauna also cause less health. The main key of all these problems is closely related to the sustainability of the world’s ecology which was declining dramati­cally each year due to the ineffective management system of natural waste material (Kramer 2012) . The industrial world has expanded exponentially over the past

Fig. 5.12 Three elements of agricultural biomass raw materials for sustainable economical development

century involving raw materials usage without emphasizing universal aspects of sustainability, but only profit oriented that may soon become a silent killer to the world ecology cycle.

All levels in the ecology of the world will receive a direct impact on development, agricultural waste resource operation that involved in different stages. This concept can be illustrated based on the increase demand by society for the product, preserva­tion of balance of the forest, the diversity of material resources and benefits ( Bovea and Vidal 2004). Previous research demonstrated that the use of composite biomass — based products in the market can sustain the ecology and economy of a country and the effect caused very less damage to ecosystems and natural resources. Society awareness can be achieved by evaluating the advantages of using agricultural bio­mass materials and its impact on the environment. The perspective of the product life cycle in terms of raw materials manufacturing process, marketing and disposal should also be considered. Transformation of low impact materials such as kenaf, oil palm, coconut fibre, and bagasse is necessary to diversify the market by providing alternative sources of fibre that has many advantages in mechanical properties for advanced applications. This can increase the market potential of the new manufac­turing industry in developing sustainable solutions (Kar and Jacobson 2012).

Agriculture is one of the world’s largest industry also a lifeblood of the econ­omy of each country as it involves a lot of the manufacturing sector, such as food (e. g. wheat, sugar, oil), construction (e. g. buildings, automotive) and the produc­tion of products (e. g. furniture, clothing, tools packaging). Agriculture is one of the world’s largest industry also a lifeblood of the economy of each country as it involves a lot of the manufacturing sector, such as food (e. g. wheat, sugar, oil),

construction (e. g. buildings, automotive) and the production of products (e. g. furniture, clothing, tools packaging). Pawlak (2007) detected the importance of the economic transformation for country depends on how the success of the product. Economics is an important factor related to the development of the country, and the demand of natural fibres using appropriate technology to produce quality fibre reinforced for use in concrete construction is gaining high score. Among the exam­ples of countries Japan and America who excel in a variety of advanced design and high demand in the world market successfully provide economic incentives and strengthen the country’s agricultural and industrial sectors. On the other hand, the economy had jumped up along with the effectiveness of economic development based on sustainability, and product can be evaluated based on the production pro­cess of a product from base till the end by provided at minimal cost. The “waste to profit” step is very important to exploit biomass raw material in the production of value-added and innovative new products.

As shown in Fig. 5.13, the global exports trend for biomass-based manufactur­ing sector continues to increase every 5 years from 2005 to 2016 (Lucintel 2011). Electrical and electronic sector, pharmaceutical, textile and other significant con­tributors in the export value of 90 % compared to wood-based industry sector and only 10 % biocomposites. Continues scenario will be able to bring a stronger econ­omy for the world market. Many factors such as easy planting and care, short-term crops, easy handling and minimal cost might benefit two fold compared with con­ventional materials (Majeed et al. 2013). For example, an oil palm biomass crop that is widely grown in ASEAN countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia can be used and converted into various products that would create an optimal supply of raw materials cycle continuously through a secure supply of quality and can pre­
vent wastage of raw materials. Raw material costs were seen to be at the highest with carbon fibre at the price of between MYR20,000 and 50,000 per tonne, fol­lowed by fibre glass with the price starting from MYR6,000 to 10,000 per tonne, and at the lowest was oil palm fibre with the cost ranging from MYR600 to 1,000 per tonne. Advantages of agricultural waste-based manufacturing industry can have a positive impact on society and the country creates many job opportunities and is able to raise the living standards of the community (Kar and Jacobson 2012). Well-income communities while increasing consumer purchasing power and domestic sources of raw materials might be able to help reduce the loss of imports.

Over recent years, many researchers have focused on research related to agricul­tural waste to solve the environmental problems due to the disposal of the biomass waste material. Agricultural waste biomass have become an interesting research field and led to the creation of new solutions and materials through research and development in science and technology. The research continued to become impor­tant for producing a new generation of processes and innovative composite products with the features of a more sustainable and improved quality (Kramer 2012). Advances in science and technology enable the world’s manufacturing industry to manipulate matter at the policy level to improve the overall properties of alternative materials to replace conventional materials. Technology-based research with a focus on biomass species variety with high potentialities can be grown to be applied in various industries for energy, pulp and paper, textiles, composites, cosmetic, con­struction, nanotechnology and pharmaceutical. This activity can make a huge impact not only on the product and the community, but to the transformation of technology development (Lane and Fagg 2010).

5.3 Conclusions

Agricultural biomass raw materials are highly potential candidates either as replace­ment or as complement to synthetic fibre in various applications due to their com­parable properties. This integrated biomass technology is not only devoted in minimizing the environmental impact but in maximizing the performance and func­tionality of fibres, sustainability of resources and profitability. The growing enthu­siasm to fully exploit agricultural biomass as material for green product also benefiting towards people as its generating many posts and opportunities. Agricultural biomass as a fascinating material brings the possibility to gain plenty of interest application in multidisciplinary fields. Until now, there have been a vast amount of well-established applications of agricultural biomass especially in con­struction, automotive, etc. However, the potential applicability of this raw material is unlimited and rapidly expanding due to their variety of unique characteristic which offered many properties that meet different requirements.