Description:
Market Opportunity
Fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composites are high-strength, lightweight structural materials that offer significant advantages over traditional structural metals. FRPs are commonly used in applications including aerospace, wind turbines, and marine products, with emerging large-scale use in the automotive manufacturing and civil engineering. Processing of FRPs makes reuse of scrap material nearly impossible. This leads to up to 30% waste of the composite material as scrap. Additionally, FRP parts are beginning to reach end-of-life. Current attempts to recycle this material result in heating the the material, essentially destroying the integrity of the fibers, or using expensive solvents, making the process commercially impractical. Furthermore, none of these process are effective for end-of-life parts. Therefore there is a need for a cheap and effective FRP composite recycling process.
USC Solution
USC researchers have developed an aerobic recycling process for FRP composites. This process uses only catalysts and air, thus avoiding peroxides and other reagents, drastically cutting down the cost as compared to other approaches. Additionally, this process enables recovery of both full, undamaged strands of high quality fibers and useful organic monomers from the reinforcing monomer matrix.
Value Proposition
- Uses only catalysts and air
- Low cost
- High quality fibers recovered
Applications
- Recycling of prepreg scrap and end of life material
Publications
https://doi.org/10.1039/D1GC01970H