BRITE Pivot: Remanufacturing Post-Consumer Carbon Fiber Composite Materials

这项促进工程中变革性和公平性进步的研究想法(BRITE)枢轴赠款支持有助于回收碳纤维增强复合材料的研究，例如用于制造飞机机身的材料。目前在使用寿命结束时管理这些材料的做法包括在垃圾填埋场掩埋或热解，后者使嵌入的碳纤维能够作为低价值的无序纤维垫回收。本项目研究一种新的制造方法，以保持嵌入这些消费后聚合物复合材料中的连续、有序的碳材料的价值。除了从这些复合材料中回收碳纤维外，该项目还研究如何回收粘合碳纤维的聚合物基质，并将这些回收材料重新制造成新的高价值聚合物复合材料产品。这些方法为美国碳纤维复合材料制造业提供了最大化价值的新途径，从而促进了国家安全和繁荣。该项目有助于获得复合材料和制造这一新领域的知识，以补充合成化学方面的现有专业知识。该项目的研究部分与工程推广活动相辅相成，为年轻人和父母提供入门的、身临其境的工程和复合材料培训，不分性别、种族和民族。虽然回收的碳纤维材料正在出现，但从消费后废物中制造这些材料的方法还处于萌芽阶段，重新制造完全固化的高质量复合材料的方法只以热解过程而闻名，这种过程往往会破坏这些材料中蕴含的大部分价值。在将碳纤维增强聚合物(CFRP)回收物及其再制造生产成新的高质量产品方面，缺乏关于树脂-纤维粘合、基质残留物的直接再制造和过程监控的基础知识。除了开发新的制造方法外，该项目还研究成像工具，以可视化聚合物回收过程和可以通过光氧化选择性分解的新聚合物树脂系统。这项研究研究了光激活单线态氧(1O2)引发的树脂破坏，并提供了一种概念上的新方法来回收和修复CFRP。这项工作开发了一种新的化学方法，该方法广泛适用于回收其他树脂和聚合物复合材料体系。它还开发了一种通过将生物成像工具应用于固体聚合物和复合材料中1O2的可视化来监控CFRP再制造的方法。这项研究的一个结果是，用从报废聚合物复合材料收集的完整碳纤维板制造CFRP产品。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Boosting Research Ideas for Transformative and Equitable Advances in Engineering (BRITE) Pivot grant supports research that contributes to the recycling of carbon fiber-reinforced composite materials, such as those used to make aircraft bodies. Current practice for managing these materials at end-of-life involves burying in landfills or pyrolysis, the latter enabling recovery of embedded carbon fibers as low-value disordered fiber mats. This project studies a new manufacturing method for preserving the value of the continuous, ordered carbon materials embedded in these post-consumer polymer composite materials. In addition to recovering carbon fibers from these composites, this project studies methods to recover the polymer matrix that binds them and to re-manufacture these recycled materials into new high value polymer composite products. These methods enable new pathways to maximize value for the US carbon fiber composite manufacturing industry thus boosting national security and prosperity. The project facilitates the acquisition of knowledge in a new field, composite materials and manufacturing, to supplement established expertise in synthetic chemistry. Research components of the project are complemented by an engineering outreach activity that delivers introductory, immersive engineering and composite materials training to youth and parents, regardless of gender, race, and ethnicity.While reclaimed carbon fiber materials are emerging, methods to make these from post-consumer waste are nascent and methods to remanufacture fully cured, quality composites are known only for pyrolysis processes that tend to destroy much of the imbued value in these materials. Fundamental knowledge is lacking regarding resin-fiber adhesion, direct re-manufacturing of matrix residues, and process surveillance, both for making carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) recyclates and their remanufacture into new quality products. In addition to developing new manufacturing methods, the project studies imaging tools to visualize polymer recycling processes and new polymer resin systems that can be disassembled selectively by photooxidation. This research investigates photoactivated singlet oxygen (1O2) initiated resin breakdown and delivers a conceptually new approach to CFRP recycling and defect repair. This work develops a novel chemical method approach that is broadly applicable for recycling other resin and polymer composite systems. It also develops an approach to monitor CFRP remanufacturing by applying biological imaging tools to the visualization of 1O2 within solid polymers and composites. An outcome of this research is to build CFRP products manufactured from carbon fiber sheets that are collected, intact, from end-of-life polymer composite materials.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.