Abstract
The recovery and reuse of glass fibres from manufacturing waste and end-of-life composites in an environmentally-friendly, cost-effective manner is one of the most important challenges facing the thermosetting polymer composites industry. A number of processes for recycling fibres from such materials are available or under development. However, nearly all options deliver recycled glass fibres that are not cost-performance competitive due to the huge drop in strength of recycled glass fibre compared to its original state. A breakthrough in the regeneration of recycled glass fibre performance has the potential to totally transform the economics of recycling such composites. This paper reviews the available knowledge of the thermally-induced strength loss in glass fibres, discusses some of the phenomena that are potentially related and presents the status of research into processes to regenerate the strength and value of such weak recycled glass fibres.
Highlights
The disposal of composite manufacturing waste and end-of-life composite products in an environmentally-friendly manner is one of the most important challenges currently facing the industrial and academic composites community
A critical technical challenge in the development of Glass Reinforced Polymer composites (GRP) recycling technology is the 80%–90% drop in the performance of recycled glass fibres (RGF) in comparison to its original state
We review the available literature addressing the strength loss of Glass fibre (GF) after thermal conditioning in the temperature range that must be employed in a composite recycling conditioning in the temperature range that must be employed in a composite recycling process if the physical form of the GF is to be retained, such that it can be reused as a reinforcement process if the physical form of the GF is to be retained, such that it can be reused as a reinforcement fibre
Summary
The disposal of composite manufacturing waste and end-of-life composite products in an environmentally-friendly manner is one of the most important challenges currently facing the industrial and academic composites community. Such GRP materials (both end-of-life and manufacturing waste) are difficult to recycle in an efficient manner and have historically been disposed of in landfills Such landfilling is rapidly becoming untenable due to legislative and landfill pricing developments. A critical technical challenge in the development of GRP recycling technology is the 80%–90% drop in the performance (and value) of RGF in comparison to its original state (see Figure 1). Suchvastly a development vastly reduce the GF landfill This would clearly be in line with the growing societal and environmental pressure requirements of the GF and GRP industry. The role of water and sizing and research on the regeneration of RGF strength
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