The next material to be recycled: carbon fiber?

by Jeremy Korzeniewski (RSS feed) on Sep 6th 2008 at 12:05PM

Carbon fiber holds a huge potential in the automotive industry. Compared to both steel and aluminum - currently the most often used metals in our cars and trucks - carbon fiber is both lighter and stronger. What's more, the material can be woven in certain ways to promote strength in some areas and flexibility in others. There are, of course, a few problems with the wonder material, namely cost and the difficulty in its construction. At least one of those two problems may soon have a bit of a solution by way of recycling. Today, the majority of the material makes its way into airplanes. As these planes become obsolete, companies are currently looking into ways of recapturing that expensive material. The actual method requires that the carbon sheets be shredded so that the desirable fibers can be reclaimed. Auto manufacturers such as Volkswagen are intrigued in the possibility of integrating new lower-cost carbon fiber content into its less expensive products. If you can read German, click here for more.

[Source: FTD.de via The Truth About Cars]

Filed under: Emerging Technologies, Volkswagen, Green Daily

Tags: carbon fiber, CarbonFiber

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

GoodCheer 2:24PM (9/06/2008)

"carbon fiber is both lighter and stronger"

Simply not true... though often repeated. It's just much lighter, so you can use more of it to compensate for the reduced strength.

Raw carbon fiber and steel are similar in strength, but only in one direction... the direction the fibers run. Once you weave the carbon fiber into a cloth you are doubling the amount of material but not adding any strength in the original direction, thus you are halving the material properties. When you fill it with a matrix (epoxy, polyester etc.) you are again doubling the bulk so again halving the material properties.

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stevefazek 3:57PM (9/06/2008)

Arguing different materials strengths is useless. Yes its stronger so you can use less and have the same amount of strength. But of course there its tensile strength and a million other strengths.

But you cant really recycle carbon fiber once its impregnated with resin. You can shred it and end up with chopped fiber but you want a cloth with a orananted weave to make it the strength people brag about..

Chopped fiber has been around for years in the form of glass. Carbon hey it has its uses but not in high tech applications. I mean boat hulls can use it as filler and what not where there's large areas that dont see too much stress.

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AMcA 9:55PM (9/06/2008)

I thought that the 787's airframe was supposed to last, literally, forever. That carbon fiber didn't fatigue the way aluminum does. And that the planes are designed to be refitted with new engines, etc, someday. No?

So why are they talking about recycling them?

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stevefazek 12:53AM (9/07/2008)

carbon fiber still fatigues just like steel. Carbon fiber actually poses a problem that aluminum doesn't. With aluminum visual inspection is fine for finding fatiguing. With Carbon fiber it has to be NDI with ultrasound.

If you hit carbon fiber with a hammer it looks fine maybe a tinny ding but inside there can be a serious delamination.

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why not the LS2LS7? 2:07AM (9/07/2008)

Carbon fiber is most useful if it has long fiber lengths. Recycled carbon fiber will have short fiber lengths due to having been ground up. It'll mostly only be useful for cosmetics, not structural things.

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R.Butler 10:17AM (9/30/2008)

It's been over 50 years since it was first developed-still awkward to make,therefore too costly.Fine for aircraft and exhibitionist cars-but,frankly as a thermoset composite its role as a metal substitute will go into a downward spiral as mandated recycling programs become the norm.

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johndgbr 6:25AM (9/29/2009)

Carbon fibre, and for that matter, glass fibre, composites can be recycled and the carbon fibre recovered with approximately 10% loss in properties. The material can be recovered in its original shape, with some restrictions in size, which offers a few more permutations in re-use than milled or chopped material. Re use very much depends on the size, shape and original material type.

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