Abstract
Fiber-reinforced polymers (FRPs) are low-density, high-performance composite materials, which find important applications in the automotive, aerospace, and energy industry, to only cite a few. With the increasing concerns about sustainability and environment risks, the problem of the recycling of such complex composite systems has been emerging in politics, industry, and academia. The issue is exacerbated by the increased use of FRPs in the automotive industry and by the expected decommissioning of airplanes and wind turbines amounting to thousands of metric tons of composite materials. Currently, the recycling of FRPs downcycles the entire composite to some form of reinforcement material (typically for cements) or degrades the polymer matrix to recover the fibers. Following the principles of sustainability, the reuse and recycling of the whole composite—fiber and polymer—should be promoted. In this review paper, we report on recent research works that achieve the recycling of both the fiber and matrix phase of FRP composites, with the polymer being either directly recovered or converted to value-added monomers and oligomers.
Highlights
Fiber-reinforced polymers are a class of composite materials in which a fiber phase is dispersed or structurally integrated in a continuous polymeric phase [1,2,3,4,5]
This review reports on recent academic research that has focused on the recycling of both the fiber and polymeric phase of glass fiber-reinforced polymers (GFRPs) and carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRPs)
We reported on recent research works that display, on an experimental scale, the possibility to recover polymers, oligomers, or monomers from the recycling of Fiber-reinforced polymers (FRPs)
Summary
Fiber-reinforced polymers are a class of composite materials in which a fiber phase is dispersed or structurally integrated in a continuous polymeric phase [1,2,3,4,5]. Carbon fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRPs) account for a considerable monetary value of the market because of the cost inherent to the production of carbon fibers (CFs), and they achieve more advanced properties than GFRPs [7] Since they can deliver excellent performance while maintaining low weight and good processability, FRPs find several engineering applications in the aerospace [9], automotive [10], energy [11], and construction industry [12]. This review reports on recent academic research that has focused on the recycling of both the fiber and polymeric phase of GFRPs and CFRPs. The performance of the recovered fibers, polymers, and composites is discussed in terms of mechanical and thermal properties and compared to the original materials. Future outlooks and critical aspects on which research would be required to further the full recycling of FRPs are discussed
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