Mechanical recycling of CFRPs: manufacturing and characterization of recycled laminates

Carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRPs) are a very attractive family of materials used in various application fields such as automotive, marine or aeronautic, due to their high specific mechanical properties. However, the large use of CFRPs dramatically increases the amount of waste materials that derives from the end-of-life products and the off-cuts generated during the manufacturing. In this contest, especially when thermosetting matrices are considered, the need to further study the recycling process of CFRPs is an open topic, both in academic and industrial research. Therefore, in this experimental campaign, CFRP materials deriving from the aeronautic field were recycled by using a milling process. The obtained chips were sieved and inspected with a confocal microscope aiming to evaluate the presence of residual matrix on the recovered fibre’s surface. Then the sieved reinforcement was impregnated with new epoxy resin and three-point bending tests were performed to understand the mechanical properties of the recycled composite materials. To produce recycled composites, two manufacturing techniques, i.e. open moulding and compression moulding were considered.