Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RECREATE (REcycling technologies for Circular REuse and remanufacturing of fiber-reinforced composite mATErials)
Reporting period: 2022-06-01 to 2023-11-30
The overall objective of the RECREATE project is to develop a set of innovative technologies aimed at exploiting the circularity potential of End-of-Life (EoL) complex composite waste (mainly carbon fiber reinforced composites CFRC, and glass fiber reinforced composites GFRC) as a feedstock for profitable reuse of parts and materials in the manufacturing industry.
The demand for both composites and high-performance fiber materials (especially carbon) at affordable costs is foreseen to grow steadily in the next few years. This trend is driven by progressive banning of landfilling of composite waste and growing needs in many sectors like automotive, transportation, wind energy, and in general for the lightweight design field. It is therefore crucial that new technological alternatives to the more consolidated mechanical grinding and pyrolysis are identified, so as to allow the recovery and reuse of materials and components in an environmental and economically convincing and sustainable way.
In the light of these considerations, the ambition of the RECREATE project is:
- to develop and validate in relevant environment novel reuse strategies for current generation, large EoL composite parts (including complex multi-material composites) based on smart recognition and inspection for sorting, high-precision dismantling and repair, temperature-assisted reshaping, design for disassembly based on reversible joints, artificial-intelligence-assisted decision support systems;
- to develop and validate in relevant environment innovative physico-chemical upcycling technologies allowing simultaneous recovery of high quality, integer, clean fibres and of an organic resin fraction reusable as secondary raw material, at the very end of the multiple reuse processes of parts.
- to demonstrate the use of smart and green reversible thermoset resins as enabling materials for the realization of the next generation of fiber-reinforced composites with easier repairability and enhanced reusability, facilitating the transition towards recyclable-by-design composite materials and structures.
Moreover, another key objective of the RECREATE project is to develop a set of new digital tools for:
- the quantitative evaluation of the environmental and socio-economic performance of the proposed technologies as well as their circularity assessment and acceleration;
- the co-design of innovative digital learning resources in the field of composite circularity, with easy adoption and high replicability.
The demand for both composites and high-performance fiber materials (especially carbon) at affordable costs is foreseen to grow steadily in the next few years. This trend is driven by progressive banning of landfilling of composite waste and growing needs in many sectors like automotive, transportation, wind energy, and in general for the lightweight design field. It is therefore crucial that new technological alternatives to the more consolidated mechanical grinding and pyrolysis are identified, so as to allow the recovery and reuse of materials and components in an environmental and economically convincing and sustainable way.
In the light of these considerations, the ambition of the RECREATE project is:
- to develop and validate in relevant environment novel reuse strategies for current generation, large EoL composite parts (including complex multi-material composites) based on smart recognition and inspection for sorting, high-precision dismantling and repair, temperature-assisted reshaping, design for disassembly based on reversible joints, artificial-intelligence-assisted decision support systems;
- to develop and validate in relevant environment innovative physico-chemical upcycling technologies allowing simultaneous recovery of high quality, integer, clean fibres and of an organic resin fraction reusable as secondary raw material, at the very end of the multiple reuse processes of parts.
- to demonstrate the use of smart and green reversible thermoset resins as enabling materials for the realization of the next generation of fiber-reinforced composites with easier repairability and enhanced reusability, facilitating the transition towards recyclable-by-design composite materials and structures.
Moreover, another key objective of the RECREATE project is to develop a set of new digital tools for:
- the quantitative evaluation of the environmental and socio-economic performance of the proposed technologies as well as their circularity assessment and acceleration;
- the co-design of innovative digital learning resources in the field of composite circularity, with easy adoption and high replicability.
During the first 18 months of the RECREATE project, the activities have been focused on the definition of the input EoL composite streams and on the output requirements for the final demonstrators. In addition, the project partners have concentrated their efforts in the initiation of the work related to the re-use and the remanufacturing of EoL composite parts, recycling and reprocessing of materials from non-reusable parts and on the establishment of relevant design strategies for the development of the next-generation of recyclable-by-design composites. The activities related to circular economy and sustainability assessment and those associated with the development of digital learning resources have also started, setting the framework for the effective implementation of the work in the following months. To that end, fruitful collaborations between all active work-packages and between all partners were successfully established via the organization of periodic web-meetings as well as physical Consortium meetings. The RECREATE portal (https://www.recreatecomposites.eu(opens in new window)) was also established.
In the first 18 months of the RECREATE project, the activities related to reuse, remanufacturing, recycling and reprocessing have been successfully initiated. In particular, the establishment of an advanced disassembly protocol on multilayer structures has enabled the recovery of disassembled components with no evident decline of mechanical properties as compared with the virgin counterpart. In addition, preliminary results on temperature-assisted reshaping have demonstrated the viability of this technology to recover flat panels from EoL GFRC parts. Finally, preliminary results on mild-temperature catalyst-assisted solvolysis have demonstrated the reclamation of clean and integer fibres with retained strength and suitable surface characteristics for further reprocessing in second-generation CFRCs and GFRCs.
In conjunction with the progress in technology development, preliminary work has been conducted to set up the framework for the integrated environmental and social-economic sustainability assessment foreseen for the developed technologies.
In the framework of the activities related to exploitation of the project results, efforts have been concentrated on the preliminary identification of key exploitable results (KERs), with a great focus on the industrial partners within the consortium. Overall, the activities of RECREATE aim to contribute to European small-medium enterprises and midcap-enterprises in a number of ways. First, RECREATE aims at fostering collaboration amongst technology developers for offering a more integrated approach relying on a set of digital tools and innovative technologies, able to maximize their impact on target markets. It also aims for a facilitated access of multidisciplinary and diverse stakeholders to innovative know-how and enabling technologies via direct stakeholder engagement.
In conjunction with the progress in technology development, preliminary work has been conducted to set up the framework for the integrated environmental and social-economic sustainability assessment foreseen for the developed technologies.
In the framework of the activities related to exploitation of the project results, efforts have been concentrated on the preliminary identification of key exploitable results (KERs), with a great focus on the industrial partners within the consortium. Overall, the activities of RECREATE aim to contribute to European small-medium enterprises and midcap-enterprises in a number of ways. First, RECREATE aims at fostering collaboration amongst technology developers for offering a more integrated approach relying on a set of digital tools and innovative technologies, able to maximize their impact on target markets. It also aims for a facilitated access of multidisciplinary and diverse stakeholders to innovative know-how and enabling technologies via direct stakeholder engagement.