Recycling carbon fibre.

[Peter7307]

With many manufacturers increasing utilising carbon fibre in their products does anyone know how this product is recycled?

Steel , aluminium and plastics are commonly recycled to a greater or lesser extent but what of carbon fibre?

Pete.

 

[MikeHalloran]

It's commonly fabricated with a thermosetting resin. I don't think there's an easy way to separate the two for recycling, nor any practical use for the separated constituents if you could do it.






Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[WGJ]

Perhaps is could be chopped or ground and added to road resurfacing materials?

Bill

 

[Compositepro]

There are some companies that do some recylcling but I doubt it is very well commercialized. The resin is removed by pyrolysis or chemicals and the fiber is milled for use as a filler in plastics. The problems are lack of consistent supply to base a business upon, and the value of the end product is not worth the cost.

 

[GregLocock]

I wouldn't necessarily say that carbon fibre is being used. A lot of what looks like carbon fibre is something far more mundane, even (to some extent) on F1 cars.

Chopped carbon fibre in roads sounds bad - the fibres cause cancer.



Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[patprimmer]

In my opinion carbon fibre has very limited recycling opportunities as the energy to recycle the relatively small volume normally in very durable applications would make the process run in the negative results area, ie more energy to recycle than to make new.

The only realistic areas I see are:-

Carbon fibre reinforced thermoplastics, and this is already done to a large extent in the moulding shop, but the volume is low, even by carbon fibre standards as most ends up in thermoset based composites.

Waste at the loom and in the spinning process. This is normally chopped and used in short strand applications like reinforcing thermoplastics.

Regards

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[Peter7307]

Thanks to all who posted.

Greg Locock,

Yes I agree much of what is marketed as carbon fibre is decidedly not.

My question was intended more to find the prevailing thoughts of the state of the market and where it may go in the future given the increasing use of the material.

Pete.