Towards Sustainable Composite Manufacturing with Recycled Carbon Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastic Composites

Sarianna Palola*, Pekka Laurikainen, Sonia García-Arrieta, Egoitz Goikuria Astorkia, Essi Linnea Sarlin

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleScientificpeer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Currently, the vast majority of composite waste is either landfilled or incinerated, causing a massive burden on the environment and resulting in the loss of potentially valuable raw material. Here, conventional pyrolysis and reactive pyrolysis were used to reclaim carbon fibers from aero-nautical scrap material, and to evaluate the feasibility of using reclaimed carbon fibers in structural components for the automotive sector. The need for fiber sizing was investigated as well as the behavior of the fiber material in macroscopic impact testing. The fibers were characterized with the single fiber tensile test, scanning electron microscopy, and the microbond test. Critical fiber length was estimated in both polypropylene and polyamide matrices. Tensile strength of the fiber material was better preserved with the reactive pyrolysis compared to the conventional pyrolysis, but in both cases the interfacial shear strength was retained or even improved. The impact testing revealed that the components made of these fibers fulfilled all required deformation limits set for the components with virgin fibers. These results indicate that recycled carbon fibers can be a viable option even in structural components, resulting in lower production costs and greener composites.

Original languageEnglish
Article number1098
JournalPolymers
Volume14
Issue number6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2022
MoE publication typeA1 Journal article-refereed

Funding

This research was partly funded by FINNISH CULTURAL FOUNDATION, grant number 00210821, and EU H2020-IND-CE project “FiberEUse” (grant agreement number 730323).

Keywords

  • Interfacial shear strength
  • Microbond
  • Reactive pyrolysis
  • Recycled carbon fiber
  • Thermoplastic

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