BRITE Pivot: Remanufacturing Post-Consumer Carbon Fiber Composite Materials

This Boosting Research Ideas for Transformative and Equitable Advances in Engineering (BRITE) Pivot grant supports research that contributes to the recycling of carbon fiber-reinforced composite materials, such as those used to make aircraft bodies. Current practice for managing these materials at end-of-life involves burying in landfills or pyrolysis, the latter enabling recovery of embedded carbon fibers as low-value disordered fiber mats. This project studies a new manufacturing method for preserving the value of the continuous, ordered carbon materials embedded in these post-consumer polymer composite materials. In addition to recovering carbon fibers from these composites, this project studies methods to recover the polymer matrix that binds them and to re-manufacture these recycled materials into new high value polymer composite products. These methods enable new pathways to maximize value for the US carbon fiber composite manufacturing industry thus boosting national security and prosperity. The project facilitates the acquisition of knowledge in a new field, composite materials and manufacturing, to supplement established expertise in synthetic chemistry. Research components of the project are complemented by an engineering outreach activity that delivers introductory, immersive engineering and composite materials training to youth and parents, regardless of gender, race, and ethnicity. While reclaimed carbon fiber materials are emerging, methods to make these from post-consumer waste are nascent and methods to remanufacture fully cured, quality composites are known only for pyrolysis processes that tend to destroy much of the imbued value in these materials. Fundamental knowledge is lacking regarding resin-fiber adhesion, direct re-manufacturing of matrix residues, and process surveillance, both for making carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) recyclates and their remanufacture into new quality products. In addition to developing new manufacturing methods, the project studies imaging tools to visualize polymer recycling processes and new polymer resin systems that can be disassembled selectively by photooxidation. This research investigates photoactivated singlet oxygen (1O2) initiated resin breakdown and delivers a conceptually new approach to CFRP recycling and defect repair. This work develops a novel chemical method approach that is broadly applicable for recycling other resin and polymer composite systems. It also develops an approach to monitor CFRP remanufacturing by applying biological imaging tools to the visualization of 1O2 within solid polymers and composites. An outcome of this research is to build CFRP products manufactured from carbon fiber sheets that are collected, intact, from end-of-life polymer composite materials. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.