Abstract
Carbon fiber composites result very attractive as lightweight materials able to substitute iron-based materials in terms of mechanical properties and performances. Indeed, the Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics (CFRP) world demand has arisen from 72 kton in 2013 to 83 kton in 2014, with a growth rate of 15%, so estimating in 2022 a possible demand of 191 kton [Witten and Mathes, 2018].
In the coming years, the introduction of such wide amount of CFRP on the market that will generate waste (30% in weight of CFRP scraps are already present as processing industrial waste) makes necessary to develop technically and economically sustainable recycling processes. Furthermore, the exploitation on the market of recovered fibers represents a fundamental node to ensure the closure of the cycle and the economic sustainability of the process [Pimienta and Pino, 2011]. CF are mainly employed as reinforcement in thermosetting matrix, even if in recent years new composite materials based on thermoplastic technopolymers such as PPS and PEKK are starting to play an important role especially in the aeronautical field [Tadini et al., 2017]. This work reports preliminary results relating to the application of a carbon fiber recovery patented process developed by ENEA [Galvagno et al. 2002; Cornacchia et al. 2009] to this new type of composite materials. Besides the recovered fibers have been employed in ceramization processes with silicon metal. Indeed the presence of ceramic layer (e.g. SiC or Si3N4) improves their properties covering surface defects and making fiber more stable to oxidation [Sugimoto et al. 2019], so allowing to expand their application sectors [Guidatti et al. 2019, Turchetti et al., 2011].
