#composites, #sustainability, #circulareconomy, #roadmap, #bookwriting I got the proofs for my book last week, and over the weekend I put together the index and got it back to my publisher.  That is the last task I have to do before it goes to print.  I did look over the proofs, found a couple of typos (best to find those now) and suggested moving some figures around so that they line up with the text better, so now it is up to my publisher.  The book is 200 pages long, so it

#composites, #sustainability, #vitrimer, #recyclableresin, #biocomposite, #bioresins I have been seeing articles in several different things that I read about a new class of polymers that is rather intriguing.  These polymers are called “vitrimers”.  Polymers that were processable by covalent bond exchange reactions (movable and reconfigurable covalent crosslinks) were developed initially in the 1990’s at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC).  James Economy’s gr

#composites, #carbonfiber, #sportsequipment, #winterolympics, #carboncomposites I have been watching the Olympic Games going on in Italy like most of the rest of us.  Sunday a week ago was the men’s Luge competition and thankfully there weren’t any horrible accidents.  That sport is not only exciting it is also nerve racking to watch.  Eighty miles an hour on a little sled barely long enough to hold the slider, going around high banked turns where the smallest mistake could b

#composites, #sustainability, #flaxfiber, #biocomposites, #fibers There appears to be quite a bit of movement in the natural, plant-based fiber business this past week or two.  Two announcements came out in Composites World about companies that are scaling up their flax fiber composite reinforcements business, and another one that I will talk about a bit later about a basalt fiber production facility being built in the Middle East.  New Circular Structures USA Inc. Facility i

#composites, #sustainability, #greenhousegasreduction, #fireproofcomposites, #fibers I saw a couple of interesting tidbits in Composites World this week that piqued my curiosity, so I thought I would dig in a little deeper and write about them and their potential impact on not only sustainability but also the composites business in general.  DEECOM Recycled Fireproof Carbon Composite I’m going to start off with one that intrigued me because of a couple of things.  First, what

#composites, #sustainability, #energyefficiency, #renewableenergy, #fibers, #resins Yes, in fact, a company in Houston called Mars Materials, Inc. which is a public benefit corporation incorporated in Texas, teamed up with the Textile Innovation Engine of North Carolina and NC State University to take CO 2  captured from the atmosphere and ammonia/bio-based feedstocks and turn it into acrylonitrile.  The Textile Innovation Center at NC State tested the Mars material and found

#composites, #textiles, #naturalfibers, #bioresins, #historyofcomposites I read a really good book this last week about the history of textiles.  The title of the book is “The Fabric of Civilization, How Textiles Made the World” by Virginia Postrel.  This book is a number one bestseller that my wife bought for all of us in the family to read.  It was recommended by John and Hank Green, the Vlog Brothers who also are the creators of the Crash Course series of educational YouTu

#composites, #sustainability, #rotorsails, #environmentalproductdeclaration, #recycling There has been a bit going on since my last post in 2025, so I thought this week I would catch everyone up with the sustainability initiatives across not only the composites industry itself, but in industries and sectors of the economy that are making heavy use and initial use of composites. Anemoi Rotor Sails on Union Maritime Chemical Tankers – CW 12/26/2025 First I want to talk a bit ab

#composites, #orthopedics, #medicaldevices, #hipreplacement, #fibers, #resins Hello everyone, I’m back for my first post in 2026.  I hope everyone had a great holiday and is ready to start this year strong – I know I am.  I’m gong to diverge a bit from the sustainability rant that I have been on for the last several months and talk a bit about composites in orthopedics and how composite materials are replacing metals – especially titanium – in orthopedics, both the implanted

#composites, #fiberglass, #structural_shapes, #construction, #composites_in_construction In this last post of 2025, I wanted to complete what I started last week and talk about fiberglass being used for structure in the construction industry.  Specifically I want to chat a bit about the evolution of what we have today as standard structural shapes as well as where these products are beginning to replace steel in construction. Fiberglass Roof Truss System Made Using Strongwell

#composites, #sustainability, #rebar, #fiberglass, #frp_rebar, #concrete_reinforcement I thought for this week I would change course a little bit and talk about the construction industry and the application of composites to that industry.  The thing that prompted this is an article in Composites World (12/1/2025) announcing that ACMA – The American Composites Manufacturers Association – has put out what they call a product category rule or PCR for fiberglass rebar.  And for t

#composites, #sustainability, #recycling, #end_of_life_composites, #thermolysis This week I’m going to make my newsletter just a bit shorter than what I did last week with all of the pictures of sailboats that use recycled or natural fibers for primary structure.  There are a couple of fairly newsworthy things that have happened just in the last few weeks that I want to focus on this week.  And I want to also let everyone know that I am going to take a couple of weeks off wri

#composites, #sustainability, #basaltfiber, #basalt, #fibers I have been seeing some interesting posts lately about the application of basalt fibers to all manner of composite material products and parts.  I had not thought much about it until a recent post in Composites World (11/10/2025) talked about a new replacement for steel rebar made from basalt fibers.  For those of you that aren’t rock people or that did not grow up in a part of the country where there were volcanoes

#composites, #sustainability, #energyefficiency, #renewableenergy, #fibers, #resins I received my November Issue of the Composites World magazine (electronically of course) this week and as usual it had a couple of interesting developments in the world of composite materials sustainability, one of which is sort of fun – if you like water sports.  So, I thought I would write about these and a couple of other things that I came across in my information feed about composites.  A

#composites, #sustainability, #energyefficiency, #renewableenergy, #fibers, #resins Since this is supposed to be a “newsletter” I thought I would collect some tidbits of news on the composites sustainability front that have come across my feed in the last couple of weeks.  I did want to get a couple of state of the art posts done, so the last two weeks I haven’t been keeping everyone up with the latest news.  And there has been some news to keep up with, especially in the rec

#composites, #sustainability, #recycling, #carbonfiber, #thermolysis, #solvolysis Last week I went through the state of the art in wind turbine blade recycling, which could alternatively have been titled “state of the art in glass fiber recycling” because most of the wind turbine blades that have come to the end of their useful life or are nearing their demise are primarily made of glass fiber composites.  In some of the larger blades, there is a carbon fiber spar cap that I

#composites, #recycling, #windenergy, #thermolysis, #solvolysis, #pyrolysis, #sustainability I have talked about this repeatedly by giving examples of companies and organizations, some largely funded and supported by governments, in previous posts.  This week, I thought I would provide a summary of what I see as the State of the Art in recycling wind turbine blades here in the US and in the EU and UK.  A lot has happened in the last couple of years, and some companies are not

#composites, #sustainability, #windenergy, #recycling, #renewableenergy A few weeks back I wrote a couple of articles, one about this project (REFRESH) and another about a company in Norway (Gjenkraft) that has gotten seed money to build a plant to recycle wind turbine blades using their pyrolysis process.  And of course the day after I wrote the article the REFRESH project posted the results of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that they had performed by a consulting company in

#composites, #sustainability, #carbonfiber, #recycling, #fibers, #resins I mentioned this work in my post just after the ICCM conference...

#composites, #sustainability, #recycling, #recycledfiber, #recycledresin I have talked in this space about composites sustainability,...