Collaboration for carbon fibre recycling
UK organisations claim a world first using reclaimed, continuous carbon fibre in a prepreg product.
Carbon fibre increasingly supports many of the next-generation products found across key growth sectors like aerospace, energy, and defence. However, it remains one of the most difficult materials to recycle, and too often its highest-value properties are degraded or lost during processing.
The National Compsites Centre (NCC), through The Centre of Expertise in Advanced Materials and Sustainability (CEAMS), report to have successfully reclaimed continuous carbon fibre, retaining its mechanical properties and showing the material’s suitability for advanced manufacturing processes.
The question faced by the research teams was whether the reclaimed material was suitable for prepregs. Prepreg carbon fibre is the material of choice for performance applications such as aerospace.
The NCC worked in collaboration with Cygnet Texkimp, SHD Composites and Teledyne CML Composites to manufacture an aircraft access panel using 100% recycled carbon fibre.
They say the achievement is a world-first use of recycled continuous carbon fibre being reclaimed from a composite part and re-used for a prepreg product.
Mechanical characterisation at SHD showed equivalence in both Vf and stiffness when compared with virgin prepreg produced at the same parameters.
