Availability of a significant amount of recycled carbon fibre from actual aircraft parts

Materials such as carbon composites offer many benefits to the aerospace sector. Weight saving and high mechanical performance are some of the key benefits. With the increasing use of these materials there is a real need to find a “2nd life” for the materials when they come to the end of their life in it’s original intended use. Landfilling the material was never the real solution but relatively convenient. This can no longer be the case.

HELACS

Issues related to the recovery of composite materials is gaining more and more importance in the aviation sector and this line of research is being increasingly considered with more emphasis in the future projections of business strategies. From Aragón, AERA (Aragon aerospace cluster), AREX (Aragon Exterior) and AIR (Aviation International Recycling) representatives attended to the meeting. One of the issues that is causing the most exceptions is the future dismantling of aircraft where HELACS is part of that strategy for the aviation of the future, as well as the manufacturing and development of sustainable aircraft in the coming years.Within the scope of the HELACS project, carbon/epoxy composites from aerospace sector will be prepared, pyrolyzed and then converted into another material ready for its second life Gen2Carbon have been pyrolyzing materials such as those shown below.

The materials initially undergo a size reduction step. This is carried out to ensure that the elevated temperature during pyrolysis can easily reach all the epoxy within the composite.

The material then undergoes pyrolysis. This involves applying temperatures between 400-700°C to the material in a controlled atmosphere. When pyrolysis is complete the remaining material is a clean carbon fibre shown in the images below. Single filament tests on the recovered carbon fibre confirm that ~90% of its strength and stiffness is retained.

Latest News HELACS

  • For aircrafts that are no longer in service, the owner considers the trade-off between direct resale and disassemble & recycled. Besides that, HELACS project (Holistic processes for the cost-effective and sustainable management of End of Life of Aircraft Composite Structures) is focused on the study of the second one of these options.

  • AITIIP Technology Centre leads HELACS, a European project which aims to develop a dual methodology of controlled comprehensive dismantling in order to make possible the classification, recycling and reuse of aircraft parts made of thermoset and thermoplastic composites that have reached their end of life. Annually, the aeronautical industry is depositing more than 40,000 tons of end-of-life composite material waste in landfills. Thanks to the recovery of materials, the technology proposed by HELACS will benefit the change towards an energy efficiency model.

  • You can now download the official HELACS project brochure. A project comes to transform the dismantling process of the aircraft of the future. HELACS employs novel robotics to recycle composite materials of large components. The HELACS process is based on the application of high water pressure that will selectively chop the thermoset parts into a dimension suitable for recycling. In addition, the pyrolysis process is used for the carbonization of the thermoset matrix to reuse the carbon fibers that overcome this chemical decomposition.

This project has received funding from the Clean Sky 2 Joint Undertaking under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement Nº 101007871
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