Composite materials from recycled carbon fibre to feature at Composites Engineering Show

LONDON (Scrap Monster): Composite materials made from recycled carbon fibre is set to emerge as a trned following a colloborative effort between Fibrecycle (partly funded by the Technology Strategy Board and six partner companies-NetComposites, Tilsatec, Sigmatex, Exel Composites UK, Advanced Composites Group Ltd (ACG), part of Umeco Composites Structural Materials (UCSM) – a Division of Umeco plc, and the University of Leeds.

The project developed the technology for recovering the waste carbon fibres and converting them into continuous, highly aligned reinforcements, including yarns, woven textiles, non-crimp fabrics, prepreg tapes and pre-consolidated sheets. FibreCycle, has developed a new generation of high performance, low cost co-mingled carbon fibre yarns and fabrics, with funding support from the Technology Strategy Board.

The yarns and fabrics are blended carbon/PET, manufactured from virgin recovered carbon fibre that would otherwise have gone to landfill. These new materials have almost 100% of the stiffness of virgin materials, but they can be offered at a lower cost than similar products currently available on the market. They are also beneficial to the environment and retain the traceability of virgin materials. In common with other co-mingled and blended materials, the fabrics are simply placed in a mould tool under pressure and passed through a heating and cooling cycle.

The partnership is now starting to tailor the material towards applications in each of these areas, working with companies who are interested in using these lower-cost blended carbon fibre materials. They are looking for additional companies to join this process and help assess the suitability of the material for these different applications and markets.

The companies involved in the project would be displaying their products at the Composites Engineering Show this week. NetComposites - stand no. 230 Sigmatex - stand no. 939 ACG - stand no. 522 In addition, the materials will be featured at the Open Forum 3 at 12:00-12:20 on Thursday 10th November, when Mohammed Riaz, Development Engineer at NetComposites, will give a presentation describing the materials development and testing in more detail.