NCC seeks to supercharge carbon fibre recycling

Continuous carbon fibre has a higher material performance than the chopped carbon fibre that is already recovered today, but which has limited industrial uses. Earlier this year, the NCC – working alongside B&M Longworth and Cygnet Texkimp – successfully trialled a process that uses superheated steam to separate out ‘continuous lengths’ of carbon fibre which can serve some of the same applications as virgin fibre. Scaling up this process over the next three years could be a crucial step to meet the growing demand for carbon fibre, which is expected to exceed supply by 2025.

“Famously, the UK leads the world in the industrialisation of carbon fibre manufacturing but has struggled to develop the sector,” said Enrique Garcia, chief technology officer at the National Composites Centre. “We exported much of our expertise – and even our manufacturing infrastructure – to Japan, which was subsequently able to capitalise on a huge growth in US defence spending in the 1980s and, later, a boom in consumer demand for high-end carbon fibre products.