SAMPE Journal - November/December 2021 - 71

INTRODUCTION
Extensive regulations have been exerted on the
treatment of industrial fumes, leading to the
burst consumption of hot-gas bag filters. In
2020, the total output value of the hot-gas bag
filtration industry was about 2.93 billion dollars
in China, and the profit margin was close to 10%.
The commercial hot-gas bag filters are nonwoven
fabrics composed of high-performance fibers,
such as aromatic, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE),
polyphenylene sulfide (PPS) and glass fibers1-3
.
The filter are high in price, corrosion resistance,
high-temperature resistance, flame retardance
but almost nondegradable4
lives are around 3 to 4 years5
. Their average service
. On the top and
inside of the replaced bag filters, a large amount
of fly ash is accumulated which also contain
highly lethal toxicants, for instance, heavy metals
and dioxin6
. Currently, the most widely employed
disposal approaches of waste filters are landfill
and incineration7
. Although these methods are
the simplest in processing and lowest in price,
they provoke fatal problems including air, soil and
underground water pollutions as well as high energy
consumption. Efforts have been made to recycle
the waste filters. Polymer chips can be reproduced
from used filters and extruded to regenerated
fibers. Filters can also be grounded to powders
and employed as fillers8
. Decomposition of filters
by radiation or heating can provide polymers with
low molecular weights which are used as addictive
in coating agents or printing inks. However, the
above approaches require for complicated long
processing to dissociate or decompose the original
filters, resulting in not only addition in costs,
reduce in properties, but also the failure of taking
full advantages of fabric structure of the filters. The
low profits of the end products are difficult to cover
the costs of collection, transportation, cleaning,
processing of used filters and the treatments of the
secondary pollutants. Therefore, the recycle of used
filters is hindered by the low economic benefits.
High performance fiber reinforced composites
possess outstanding mechanical properties, high
resistance to heat and corrosion, relative light in
weight compared to metals, and can be fabricated to
high profit products, such as furniture, automobile,
rail transportation, aircraft, spacecraft and military
armaments9-11
. However, the high-performancefiber-based
fabrics are usually expensive and
thin in thickness. To fabricate composites with
a thickness merely around a half centimeter, for
instance, requires for ten to dozens of layers, which
is high in price. Besides, high-performance fabrics
are lack of functional groups and exhibit poor
affinities to matrices.
www. sampe.org
Suprem™ P Profile
Tailored to Your Application
www.suprem.ch
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021
|
SAMPE JOURNAL |
71
Herein, we raised a strategy to develop prepregs
from the recycled PTFE/PPS filters (PPF) as the
reinforcement or the binding fabric layers in
composites. These filter fabrics are not only flame
retardant, corrosion resistant, but also surface
functionalized during serving and light in weight
with certain thicknesses. Therefore, we supposed
that the employment of these recycled filters
to produce composites could lower the costs,
reduce the weight of composites and enhance
the mechanical properties by forming better
interfacial binding. Both composite laminates
and honeycomb core composites were developed
in this work with and without cover layers of glass
fabrics (GF) or carbon fabrics (CF). The mechanical
properties, interfacial bonding, thermal properties
and flame retardancy of composites were evaluated
and compared to the properties of corresponding
composites made from new filters. This work paved
the way to apply the waste hot-gas filters in the
high-profit field of composites and might promote
the development of the hot-gas filter recycling
industry which has far-reaching implication on air
pollution control.
For Automated Processing
Thermoplastic Composite Materials
TAPE
Suprem™ T Tape
ROD
Tape Winding
Tape Placement
3D Printing
Suprem™ R Rod
PROFILE
Compression
Moulding
Overmoulding
Machining
http://www.suprem.ch http://www.sampe.org
SAMPE Journal - November/December 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of SAMPE Journal - November/December 2021
