The purpose of this overview is to discover materials commonly used in the automotive industry and provide an overview of optimized composites to reduce weight, cost, fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. The cost of carbon fiber, Al and Mg lightweight composites is much higher than conventional materials. It is therefore important for research and development in the area of reducing costs, increasing recyclability, enabling integration and maximizing the fuel economy benefits of automobiles. In order to meet these characteristics, natural fibers have better properties and, in addition to being environmentally friendly, will become the material of choice for the future automotive industry. Composites can reduce weight by 10-60%. Researchers are already working with bio composites, investigating not only the economic aspects, but also the properties and associated manufacturing processes for environmentally friendly transportation and CO2 reduction.

An effective and expeditious method of the synthesis of a highly functionalized piperidines, catalyzed by nontoxic, recyclable and environment friendly sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS), via one-pot multi-component condensation of aldehydes, amines and β-ketoesters in water at room temperature, has been developed. This new protocol has advantages such as moderate to high yields of products obtained after simple post reaction workup. Structure of the synthesized compounds 4a–4j have been elucidated based on the 1H NMR, 13C NMR, FT-IR spectroscopy and elemental analysis.

Novel fragrant starch-based films with limonene were successfully prepared. Biodegradable materials of natural origin were used and the process was relatively simple and inexpensive. The effect of limonene on physicochemical properties of starch-based films (moisture absorption, solubility in water, wettability, mechanical properties) were compared to glycerol plasticized system. Taking into consideration that the obtained materials could also exhibit bactericidal and fungicidal properties, the studies with Escherichia coli, Candida albicans and Aspergillus niger were performed. Such a material could potentially find application in food packaging (e.g. masking unpleasant odors, hydrophilic starch film would prevent food drying), or in agriculture (e.g. for seed encapsulated tapes).