EAGER: Engineering a Low-Cost Polymer Composite Based on Recycled Carbon Fibers

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Carbon fiber reinforced polymer composites have high strength-to-weight ratios and are corrosion free which make them attractive to the aerospace and automotive industries. Recycling carbon fiber composites from end-of-life products leads to resource and energy savings, with a variety of benefits including a reduction in the need for landfills currently used for end-of-life composite products. This EArly-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) project capitalizes on a novel technology to recycle carbon fiber composites where the polymer matrix, including all its toxic byproducts, are removed, and minimal damage, if any, occurs to the carbon fibers. A new class of polymer composites based on recycled carbon fibers will be investigated. This novel composite is estimated to cost only 20 percent of the cost of virgin carbon fiber composites and is expected to achieve an acceptable combination of mechanical properties. The research will be conducted at University of New Mexico, which is a Minority and Hispanic-Serving Institution (MHSI), will include a local industrial partner, Adherent Technologies Inc., and will also engage students at the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute (SIPI) who will be participate in the composite recycling, fabrication, and testing. This research aims at investigating the fundamental processes required to develop a new class of low-cost carbon fiber reinforced composites, from recycled carbon fibers, with appreciable strength and ductility, yet with a stiffness suitable for a wide range of applications. Understanding the processing-structure-mechanical property relationships in these novel recycled composites is key to realizing their potential. This research will investigate the role of fiber-fiber interactions, fiber length and morphology, fiber volume fraction, fiber surface quality and reactivity, and sizing-matrix compatibility on the mechanical behavior of this new composite. The recycled carbon fibers can produce a new class of composites containing long, entangled fibers and are therefore different from both conventional continuous and chopped fiber composites. This unique feature provides an opportunity to engineer the composite by manipulating fiber orientation and length as well as altering the fiber-matrix interfaces to achieve a combination of mechanical properties not possible using current fibers.