JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #136 - September/October 2020 - 49

Novel thermoset composites for more competitive and sustainable industries

3R-mechanical recycling

traditional chemicals such as mild acid or
basic media, toluene, acetone, alcohol, etc.
The second option is the mechanical route.
3R Composites can be ground into a recyclate and then hot compression moulded,
resulting in a new class of "2nd generation
parts". Both recycling routes make it
possible to recycle production scrap and
end-of-life parts.
In addition to these three functionalities,
3R resin allows the creation of covalent
bonds between two 3R Composites when
they come together and pressure and temperature are applied, achieving a thermoset
welding.

Projects
Although the proofs of concept confirming
these new functionalities of 3R resin have
already been validated at the lab scale, it
is still necessary to keep on developing
them to bring them closer to the market.
CIDETEC is currently working with this
technology in several H2020 projects.
In the ECOXY project (https://ecoxy.
eu/), innovative bio-based 3R epoxy resins
and fibres are being developed to produce
new sustainable thermoset composites by
targeting advanced functionalities: repairability, reprocessability and recyclability. The
parts manufactured will be validated for the
demanding construction and automotive
sectors.
The AIRPOXY project (https://www.
airpoxy.eu/) proposes a new generation of
smart 3R epoxy composites to overcome
the drawbacks of the standard thermoset
resins widely used in the aircraft industry,
driving down production costs and increasing production rates. Thermoformable,
repairable, and bondable 3R Composites
for aerostructures are being developed.

Finally, the HARVEST project (https://
www.harvest-project.eu/) will combine
bio-inspired hierarchical TEG (Thermo
Electric Generator)-carbon fibre reinforcements with novel 3R resin systems
to produce multifunctional TEG-enabled
structural composite materials for the aeronautical sector.
Future
3R Composite manufacturers will increase
their innovation capacity and competitiveness by integrating the new technology to
produce new sustainable composite products in high volumes, reducing the rejected
parts through repairing and recovering the
generated scraps through recycling (by
chemical or mechanical routes). At the
same time, they will offer to end-users novel
composite parts that can be easily repaired
when damaged in service and can be easily
recycled at their end of life.
More information:
www.cidetec.es/en/surface-engineering

Feature Sustainability

N°136 September - October 2020

/ jec composites magazine

49

http://www.harvest-project.eu/ http://www.harvest-project.eu/ https://ecoxy.eu https://ecoxy.eu http://www.airpoxy.eu/ http://www.airpoxy.eu/ http://www.cidetec.es/en/surface-engineering http://www.mccleananderson.com

JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #136 - September/October 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #136 - September/October 2020