With more than 150 members, the University of Tennessee Advanced Composite Manufacturing Innovation Institute ("IACMI") of the University of Tennessee located in Knoxville, USA, which is dedicated to enhancing domestic capacity and increasing employment in the US composites industry, announced with the US Department of Energy A project to develop a robust, scalable composite recovery approach.
The project is led by the American Association of Composites Manufacturers ("ACMA"), a team of members including Continental Structural Plastics, CHZ Technologies, A. Schulman and the University of Tennessee, Owens Corning and Ashland Important support.
One of the ongoing challenges for the composites industry over the decades has been to identify a process that will be used to recycle scrap material produced during production and the composite material after the end of its useful life to reduce the amount of composites that can be filled, This initiative is just to solve these problems.
'In terms of sustainability from cradle to cradle, composite materials after the end of their service life are often considered less competitive than competing materials, because composites are difficult to recycle, and the study will provide strong technical evidence to counter the This understanding, "said Tom Dobbins, president of ACMA.
The goal of this technical cooperation is to develop a mechanical and heating recovery method to obtain energy value and residual ash / fiber, which will support IACMI in 5 years to achieve 'create 80% recyclability of composite materials' The project will increase the sustainability of composites while reducing the amount of waste and the amount of composites used after use.The project will also support ACMA's efforts to "recover glass fibers from fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites and Carbon fiber. "To this end, the project will study and test CHZ Technologies' promising pyrolysis technology that will recover all liquid, tar and grease from composites and convert them to clean syngas, At the same time recovery of glass fiber and carbon fiber.
'This Thermolyzer technology offers a unique opportunity to recycle composite materials on a large scale, making future consolidation of composites a viable and sustainable option for many industries in the future,' said Uday Vaidya, chief technology officer at IACMI.
Composites applications continue to grow with superior performance. The IACMI / ACMA Composites Recycling Program can further help industries use composites to save costs and energy while reducing the amount of composites that enter landfills each year.