FibreLoop: Closing the Loop on Automotive Carbon Fibre Prepreg (UK/USA)

我们的愿景是将废弃的碳纤维回收到高性能的注塑模丸中。目前，来自编织和加工的废碳纤维没有什么价值，因为几乎没有可行的方法来重复使用这些材料，并利用纤维中仍然具有的重要性能。同时，碳纤维技术的潜在巨大赞助者，汽车工业，由于材料和成型技术的高昂成本，无法明显地使用它。因此，我们将利用Vartega Inc.开发的回收技术，并将其与Covenant Composits的新型颗粒制造技术相结合，以生产大量产品，这是一种高性能材料，具有诱人的性价比。这将减少碳纤维废料，低成本的再生碳纤维将被用于车辆轻量化应用，以提高燃油经济性和减少排放。该项目的创新在于从树脂预浸料中提取碳纤维的化学工艺，以及使用不连续的纤维连续拉挤工艺制造颗粒。这两项创新结合在一起，将导致罕见的废物材料被利用来创造高性能材料。

Our vision is to upcycle waste carbon fibre into high-performance injection moulding pellets.Currently, waste carbon fibre from weaving and processing has little value as there are few viable methods to re-use the materials and to utilise the still significant properties that remain in the fibres. At the same time a potentially huge benefactor of carbon fibre technology, the automotive industry, cannot viably use it due to the high cost of the material and the techniques used to mould it.Therefore we will utilise the reclamation techniques developed by Vartega Inc and combine it with the novel pellet manufacturing technique of Coventive Composites to produce a high volume, high-performance material with an attractive cost/performance profile for automotive applications.This will reduce the carbon fibre scrap waste stream and low-cost recycled carbon fibre will be utilized in vehicle light-weighting applications to improve fuel economy and reduce emissions.The innovation within this project is in the chemical process to extract the carbon fibres from resin prepregs and in the use of discontinuous fibres for a continuous pultrusion process to make pellets. Combined, these two innovations will result in a rare case of waste materials being utilised to create a high-performance material.