Sustainable Sails: Novel recycling of carbon composites

可持续帆船是一家海洋行业研发公司，在解决行业重大挑战方面有着创新的记录。在这个项目中，回收碳纤维复合材料的挑战是有针对性的，特别是帆。现代碳帆由高科技碳纤维复合材料制成，然而，像大多数复合材料一样，这些帆一旦达到使用寿命，就无法回收和再利用，目前英国各地的水手都无法使用这些帆。全球有超过150万艘游艇和100万艘小艇，这种废物来源既在增长，又在行业内没有得到解决。可持续帆船与B&M Longworth、先进材料研究中心、Farapack聚合物和精密游艇合作，在现有合作的基础上扩大回收过程。为了实现这一目标，他们将在未来6个月内将回收的船帆从0.5公斤增加到50公斤。在此过程中，这项合作将了解它们的回收过程对帆的不同组成部分的影响。这将包括对纤维的分析，以最大限度地提高其在未来项目中的可用性，包括开发技术，以改善可持续帆船现有的氯油产品线。此外，他们现有的工作表明，回收帆的一些其他组件也可以重复使用，因此该项目将利用工业和绿色化学的进步，将这些组件回收到其他产品中。该项目旨在通过将构成这些帆的所有组件返回到其他产品中，从而实现高性能碳纤维复合材料的“闭环”。这将有助于英国和海洋产业实现“循环经济”，在这种经济中，所有废物都可以重复使用并返回循环。通过将重点放在船帆上，该项目将证明回收其他碳纤维复合材料是可能的，减少了碳纤维生产对环境的影响，并消除了在使用寿命结束时将这些复合材料处理到垃圾填埋场的需要。

Sustainable Sailing is a marine industry R&D company, with a track record of innovation to address the grand challenges of the industry. In this project the challenge of recycling carbon fibre composites is targeted, specifically sails.Modern carbon sails are built from high technology carbon fibre composites, however like most composites, recycling and reuse of these sails once they have reached the end of their useful life are not currently available for sailors across the UK. With over 1.5 million yachts and 1 million dinghies globally, this source of waste is one which is both growing and is not being addressed within the industry.Working with B&M Longworth, the Advanced Materials Research Centre, Farapack polymers and Precision Yachting, Sustainable Sailing is building upon existing collaboration to scale-up their recycling process. They will do this by going from 0.5kg of sails recycled to 50kg in the next 6 months. Along the way, this collaboration will understand the effects of their recycling process upon the different components of the sails. This will include analysis of the fibres to maximise their useability for future projects, including development of technologies to improve Sustainable Sailing's existing Chlorofoils product line. Furthermore, their existing work suggests that some other components of the recycled sail can also be reused, so this project will be using advances in industrial and green chemistry the return these components back other products.This project aims to "close the loop" of high-performance carbon fibre composites, by returning all the components that make up these sails into other products. This will help the UK and the marine industry realise the "circular economy" in which all waste products can be reused and returned into circulation. By focusing upon sails this project will demonstrate that it is possible to recycle other carbon fibre composites, reducing the environmental impact of carbon fibre production and eliminating the need to dispose of these composites into landfill at the end of their useable life.