Australia invests in carbon fibre recycling solution

Luke Henderson, Professor at Deakin University in Australia, has received US$ 1 million worth of funding from the Australian Research Council (ARC) to advance carbon fibre recycling.

The funds are meant to help create technology to optimise recycled carbon fibre use in the mass production of high-performance parts in the wind, solar and hydrogen energy sector.

Henderson expects the annual demand for carbon fibre to exceed global production capability. At the moment, only about 2% of the thousands of tonnes of carbon fibre produced each year is recycled. Another issue is that the majority (95%) of today’s composites are made using thermoset polymers – these are not suitable for the mass production of parts to support renewable energy and other high-end applications.

‘The prediction is that by about 2030, there won’t be enough carbon fibre produced globally to meet demand,’ Henderson observes. ‘Recycling existing carbon fibre products is the only feasible way to access this critical raw material. Unfortunately, there’s a perception that recycled carbon fibre is inferior,’ the researcher notes. ‘I’m trying to get rid of that perception.’

The team at Deakin University is exploring how reclaimed and milled carbon fibre can be used to remove pollutants such as per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). Industry partners involved in the project are carbon fibre recycler Gen 2 Carbon and polymer and carbon fibre manufacturing firm Solvay.

More details on Henderson’s work can be read in this paper.