Lightweight and sustainable materials—a global scenario

Technological advancements and innovations in lightweight materials can have significant promises in day-to-day life. Many lightweight materials like aluminum, magnesium, titanium, beryllium, carbon-based composites, and glass fiber–based composites are highly demandable due to their protruding features over petroleum-based products. Lightweight materials are characterized to have low-density materials having higher strength, excellent flexibility, thermal resistance, and improved performances. Due to this, these materials have profound applications in automobile, construction, packaging, biomedical, aerospace, and acoustic applications. Moreover, these functional materials can be developed using several host matrices and reinforcing materials. Hence, this chapter will give a brief introduction to lightweight materials, biocomposites as lightweight materials, different lightweight materials like carbon-based composites, glass fiber–based composites, foams as lightweight materials, wood fiber–based composites, hybrid composites, and bionanocomposites. In addition to this, the global impact of lightweight materials in various industries and the impact of COVID-19, challenges and future outlooks are also discussed.