While the use of carbon fibre composites, with their high strength and low weight, combined with their resistance to temperature extremes, corrosion and wear, has become ubiquitous - particularly in vehicles of all kinds, from commercial aircraft to racing bikes - at the end of life, they nonetheless become a problem.
Carbon fibre materials have, to date, mainly been disposed of in landfills or they have been incinerated, as few recycling options are available. While several companies are currently exploring industrial and economically viable solutions for recycling the carbon fibre, very few, if any, are looking at recycling the entire composite.
In an effort to find a more sustainable end-of-life solution for these materials, experts in Huntsman’s Advanced Materials division approached several recycling companies to propose collaboration efforts targeting the recovery or recycling of both the fibre and the resin and chemical components. They found the partner they needed in V-Carbon Technologies, a UK-based advanced materials technology company.
V-Carbon has developed the first fully integrated carbon fibre circular economy for use in the aerospace, automotive, wind energy, and industrial sectors. The company has developed an integrated process chain to produce advanced materials systems using high-performance second life carbon fibres. These recovered carbon fibre material systems are easily integrated into existing manufacturing platforms. They retain their mechanical performance, making them suitable for a variety of high performance, high-value applications.
V-Carbon’s technology is based on a patented chemolysis process enabling the carbon fibre and the chemical resins obtained at the end of the recycling process to be repurposed.
Huntsman brings its extensive experience in developing and manufacturing chemical products to the partnership. Its role is to ‘analyse the resin recyclate that results from their chemolysis process’, said Klaus Ritter, Technology Intelligence Manager for Huntsman’s Advanced Materials division.
“By studying the output of the recycling process, we can identify new uses for the material, which helps solve the current end-of-life issue with high-performance composite materials.”
Huntsman and V-Carbon have agreed to work together to develop and optimise the recovery of the chemicals present in the chemolysis recyclate - something which has previously not been possible.
“Working with Huntsman allows us to provide even more value to our customers and to society as a whole,” said Damian J. Cessario, founder and CEO of V-Carbon Technologies.
“We were already successful in producing carbon fibre yarn from our process. Our collaboration with Huntsman opens up additional opportunities for circularity in manufacturing by identifying sustainable solutions for the entire carbon fibre composite material.”