This week I wanted to talk a little bit about where we are today with recycling and reuse of carbon fiber from waste and end of life carbon fiber composites. I have talked in the past about how difficult it is to get the fiber released from the resin while maintaining physical and mechanical properties, so I thought I would look into what has been going on just this year in this endeavor. As it turns out, quite a bit has been going on, and there are even a few companies that not only net the carbon fiber, but also retain quite a bit of the resin that can be reused to make new composites. There are a few newer applications that are using fiber that is recycled with some of these new processes, and the demand for this stuff is really starting to take off.
Recycled Carbon Fiber Roof Scoop for Objectif Dune Buggy
I thought I would start off with this pic (Composites World 9/27/2024), just because I like it, and it is a really good example of how creative people have gotten in using recycled carbon fiber. Two companies in the EU (actually both in Switzerland) have teamed up to make a roof scoop for this dune buggy that not only uses recycled carbon fiber, but is also healable and very easy to repair. One of these, Composites Recycling, I have talked about before. They are one of the largest recyclers of carbon fiber in the EU, and their process does retain most of the resin in the form of what they call “pyrolysis oil”. The other – CompPair – has developed a healable and very rapidly repairable composite with a fairly special thermoset resin system they call HealTech that acts more like a thermoplastic when you want to heal it. This renders the roof scoop for this dune buggy very easily repairable just by using a heat gun.
If any of you out there have watched dune buggy races, you know there are plenty of crashes and the body parts that stick out – like this roof scoop – get damaged all the time. The scoop itself is the black thing you see at the top of this buggy. It channels air to the engine compartment in this thing to cool the engine. This is a clever use of composites and a great way to use recycled carbon fiber. And taking air off the roof where there is less dust and sand probably keeps the air intake fairly clean in this thing.
Here in the U.S. there is a fairly new program that has just been funded by the DOE at Washington State University (1) that aims to develop recycled carbon fiber for automotive parts. The researchers at WSU have come up with a relatively simple solvolysis-like method for removing the resin from the fiber while preserving both. They have found that they can use a fairly mild Lewis acid as their catalyst with a fairly eco-friendly organic solvent to dissolve the resin from the fiber. And they achieve this at fairly moderate temperatures, like 200° C.
WSU is leading this effort, and including researchers from North Dakota State University, the University of Wyoming, and the Pacific Northwest National Lab (one of the places I worked may years ago). As their commercialization partner, they are collaborating with Hyundai-Kia America Technical Center. The grant is for $2M, so we should expect good results from this in the near future.
In other news, in Korea, at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology, researchers have demonstrated the use of supercritical water to break down and remove the epoxy in a carbon fiber / epoxy composite fairly rapidly. Of course, this requires temperatures above 374° C (685° F) and a pressure of 218 atmospheres (3200 psi), so this isn’t something you can do at home in your garage. Nevertheless, these sorts of temperatures and pressures are fairly easy to achieve in an industrial setting and are fairly common in the petrochemical process industry.
Now that we have a handle on the new processes that are beginning to be scaled up and the companies that are partnering up in new ventures to take advantage of the low carbon footprint of these recycled fibers as well as their low cost, where is the market headed? That is a fair question and it fortunately has a pretty good answer. In one report from a company in India (S&S Insider) it is stated that the recycled carbon fiber market will reach $464M per year by 2032. That is a very large market. And that isn’t the only report on this subject that I found.
Stratview Research (Composites World 10/1/2024)
This graph is from a report put out by Stratview Research in Detroit. This company specializes in mobility and composites consulting and just recently published a report titled “Carbon Fiber Recycling: A Commercial Perspective.” That is where this graphic came from. As you can see, the demand for recycled carbon fiber still far outstrips the available supply both from in-process waste and end of life waste. I would not expect this picture to do much more than get better over time, because of the industries that are clamoring for inexpensive carbon fiber for their transportation and sporting goods products.
Finally, it is my hope that as more recycled fiber becomes available, and more of the plant-based carbon fiber become available, the carbon fiber business will be booming well into the future. As I have written about in previous newsletters, the demand for carbon fiber for the burgeoning offshore wind industry will require an order of magnitude increase in the ability of manufacturers to supply the industrial grade carbon fiber that these industries will require.
That’s about it for this week. I hope everyone that reads these posts enjoys them as much as I enjoy writing them. As usual I will post this first on my website – www.nedpatton.com – as well as on LinkedIn. And if anyone wants to provide comments to this, I welcome them with open arms. Comments, criticisms, etc. are all quite welcome. I really do want to engage in a conversation with all of you about composites because we can learn so much from each other as long as we share our own perspectives.
I also wanted to let everyone know that I have finished the first draft of my second book. This one is about what I have been writing in these newsletters for the last 6 months or so – sustainability of composites and a path to the future that does not include using fossil fuels for either the raw materials or the process energy to make composites. McFarland got back to me last week, and they decided that they will pick this one up as well. I am actually under contract with them for the book. My ingoing title is “Close the Circle, a Roadmap to Composite Materials Sustainability”.
Finally, I still need to plug my first book, so here’s the plug. The book pretty much covers the watershed in composites, starting with a brief history of composites, then introducing the Periodic Table and why Carbon is such an important and interesting element. The book was published and made available last August, and is available both on Amazon and from McFarland Books – my publisher. However, the best place to get one is to go to my website and buy one. I will send you a signed copy for the same price you would get charged on Amazon, except that I charge $8 shipping. Anyway, here’s the link to get your signed copy: https://www.nedpatton.com/product-page/the-string-and-glue-of-our-world-signed-copy. And as usual, here’s a picture of the book.
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