Co-authors​ :

 Alexandre FAURE (FRANCE), Hugo CARTRON (FRANCE), Constance AMARÉ (FRANCE), Vincent GAMBOA  

As a result of the increasing use of carbon fibre composites in the transportation industry, the quantity of waste generated is heading in the same direction. It is therefore crucial to deal with the end-of-life and production offcuts of these materials. Considering there are two steps to recycle carbon fibre, 1) removing the matrix from the fibre and 2) re-shape the recovered carbon fibre, it appears that the major hurdle is the latter. Nova Carbon, a French start-up, is working towards this issue, considering that recycling carbon fibre can only be an industrial reality if composites made from recycled carbon fibre yield high mechanical and environmental performances. To manufacture high performance composites, Nova Carbon needs to produce semi-finished products adapted to the composite industry using recycled carbon fibre. This is possible using the alignment machine developed by I2M Laboratory and patented by the University of Bordeaux. This process is based on separating and aligning fibres without degrading them to maintain their length. Accordingly, the continuous tape obtained is made of long and aligned discontinuous fibres. This tape offers various opportunities in terms of manufacturing composites as it can be use as it is or assembled into fabrics. Moreover, this machine was designed to process woven fabrics and loose fibres and therefore accepts a large range of recovered fibres, from end-of-life composites to carbon fibre offcuts.
In this recycling industry, several sources supply materials to be processed, which implies a variety of shapes and qualities of carbon fibres. Although the quality of the tape must be consistent to manufacture high performance composites required by the targeted market. Thus the ambition of Nova Carbon is to industrialize this process so recycled carbon fibre can finally be utilized to manufacture sustainable high-performance composites.