Development of bulk moulding compounds and extrusion compounding processes using recycled glass fibres

Bryce, David and Yang, Liu and Moradi, Ramin and Thomason, James (2024) Development of bulk moulding compounds and extrusion compounding processes using recycled glass fibres. In: 21st European Conference on Composite Materials, 2024-07-02 - 2024-07-05.

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Abstract

Project PRoGrESS aims to deliver a pilot-scale fluidised bed recycling facility to recover the glass fibre reinforcement from end-of-life composite material which can then be reprocessed, moulded, and reused in relevant industrial applications. In this paper, model and genuine fibre recyclates were used to produce bulk moulding compounds and injection moulding test materials. It was found that BMC products with mechanical properties acceptable for commercial implementation could be achieved with almost total replacement of virgin glass fibres with heat-treated glass fibres, though increased fibre content was necessary. Application of a coupling agent had little significant effect on BMC mechanical properties and the introduction of an extended mixing period significantly reduced tensile, flexural, and impact properties. Compounding of recycled glass fibres with polypropylene showed that the fluffy fibres tended to form entangled mats unsuitable for extrusion. Compounding at levels of reinforcement loading above 10 wt.% was not possible due to poor material flow in the hopper. It is concluded that in addition to optimising recycling technologies and fibre post-treatment formulations, suitable manufacturing or fibre preparation techniques must be developed to support the introduction of recycled materials into conventional thermoplastic composite manufacturing processes.

ORCID iDs

Bryce, David, Yang, Liu ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8475-1757, Moradi, Ramin and Thomason, James ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0868-3793;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)