Research trends in polymer matrix composites used for personal protective equipment: A bibliometric analysis

Polymer composite materials (PCM) have demonstrated their potential in successfully replacing conventional materials. At the same time, due to their characteristics and mechanical, chemical, and structural properties, they meet the performance requirements in various applications. Using these materials to manufacture different components of personal protective equipment (PPE) offers an excellent strength/weight ratio, comfort, and stability in aggressive environments, but also an essential contribution to the sustainability of the materials. Integrating renewable or post-industrial materials into the PMC represents a significant advantage in developing sustainable materials with a low environmental impact. Therefore, this paper aims to analyze the bibliometric data of scientific works based on the use of these materials to manufacture PPE. This analysis provides new research directions, and the problems encountered in the specialized literature are identified. The extracted bibliometric data were based on polymer matrix composite materials used to manufacture personal protective equipment for different parts of the body: head, body, hands, and feet. Further, processing these results through the VOSviewer and Bibliometrix software thus offers us new research directions in this field.