Introductory Chapter: Recycling and Reuse of End-of-Life Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymers

Abstract

Industrial carbon-bearing waste from airliners, trains, cars, boats, turbine blades, sporting, industrial and commercial goods is very hard to recycle or reshape into original components [1, 2]. Carbon fibre-reinforced polymers (CFRPs) (>90% carbon) contain significant fraction of carbon fibres within a polymer matrix, along with varying levels of additives such as silica, alumina and other minerals. Carbon fibres contribute towards high tensile strength, whereas the matrix provides the impact strength [3]. Their key characteristics such as long-term thermal stability, rigidity, dimensional stability, resistance to creep and deformation under load, high electrical and thermal insulating properties and other advantages play an important role in their various applications; however, these create major bottlenecks for their end-of-use disposal [4, 5]. These fire-resistant materials that are designed to resist combustion contain large amounts of pure, disordered carbon with a complex bond network and are difficult to recycle by conventional means.