Fibre Reinforced Polymer

Take a class, soon, on internet searching.

Scholarly articles for pyrolysis to recycle fibre reinforced polymers

Recycling glass fibre reinforced composites - history and ...

Thank you very much for your response. I found the articles on the net also, what i need is a list of companies currently in the business of recycling glass fibre through pyrolysis.

Well, that can be found as well, by carrying out a simple internet search, and picking up the telephone.

<...south...> of where, exactly? After all, most places are south of Reykyavik

Thanks a lot i am still searching the internet and i have also been making calls as well...

Moreover, i did not get you email can you please resend to kayodeoluwabunmi@my.unt.edu.

My school is in denton, close to dallas in north texas.

I look forward to hear from you.

You should not really place your email online, you should send a CR4 Personal Message to the person you want to contact. Obviously with your "real" email address in it....

Admin may erase this post.

It is highly inadvisable to post email addresses in international fora. They are easily harvested by spambots, which proceed to bombard the address with adverts for personal medical products and money-laundering scams from Nigeria and render the address unusable. Such practice also runs contrary to CR4 site rules.

Ok thank you

No I still did not get your email.

presume the email I sent to u has very active blockers. I will need to send you personal message in order to send u another email address to use.

how can I send u a personalized message on this forum please?

AP, as a project manager of a company that using pyrolysis methods, nothing is as simple and straight forward as it seems.

As a student, you should do more research on the by-products of pyrolysis. And not in technical journals. You will be enlightened.

Thank you for the enlightenment. Good to know you work in a company that uses the technique of pyrolysis, Please i will like to know do you use it for recycling glass fibre of carbon fibre reinforced polymer. if yes please can i get your contact of how i can reach your company. my professor and i have specific questions to ask that will be better done justice to through a visit of phone call.

No natural fibers, for food ingredients.

phoenix911 is basically telling you that for reasons that may have been thought of or actually observed, that there is a problem either physical or economic or both, that make the process unfeasible for his company.

You might want to enlist the aid of a chemical engineer for more information on what reaction products are generated during pyrolysis.

eloquently put, you are correct, most.

At our company, there is a by-product that is extremely difficult to move.

Not sell, there is a high demand for it.

Not refine, it already refined.

But move, we can't transport it until we stabilize it.

On top of that Pyrolysis is a high maintenance process to the process equipment, as well as energy require to move it. Not to mention regulatory requirement. And regulatory requirements can shut the process down before it even leaves the proposal stage.

These costs has to be determined and integrated into the procedure as well as the process itself. And this will only eliminate some for the surprises later.

Then again,... sometimes it best that one doesn't know what he's getting himself in, or nothing will be developed.

I tip my hat to your sir.

As an aside, I know nothing about the subject, on the recycling end, but, 50 years ago, was involved in the first epoxy layups of many different types of structures, mostly aerocraft and marine . The field has developed way past my current involvement, with materials and design. I have often wondered what could be done with all of the abandoned fibreglass boats, laying about in marinas, surfboards, prefab bathtubs,showers, hot tubs, etc., still being installed in huge housing projects, but being torn out of older projects, etc. and other glass reinforced refuse , that was heavily used in the 50's . 60's, and into the current age. etc. Have there been ways found to recycle and reuse this stuff? Maybe grind and use as inert structural fiber in concrete, or the like? Thanks, Macc

I worked at a shipyard that was heavy into FRP earlier in my career. And for what I gained from there, pyrolysis it's about breaking or loosing bonds....

Put more simply, try unbaking a cake. over-simply put.

Beautifully put!!

Are you sure its even possible with this "man made" stuff? Without expensive filters?

Also, even if it worked, I would imagine that its made from fossil fuel and would bring even more CO2 into the atmosphere, just like burning fossil fuels do.....leaving the CO2 sequestered in the fiberglass, sounds to me almost like a good move!! It sounds like a big maybe.....but I could be completely wrong.

Pyrolysis using a Bio Mass, is just returning to the atmosphere, the same amount of CO2 that the plants/trees used for growing, a sort of CO2 recycling.....

We used to process many reinforced plastics of multiple compositions. (ABS, PC, Acrylic, Nylon, Polyprop etc.)

These materials varied in HDT from 95 DegC to 350DegC

The fillers varied from 5% long glass fibre to 50% talc and even 60%flame rounded short glass fibre

Many of these engineering materials were modified with fibre and fillers. Products were designed to handle 10% admix of re-processed material (per manufacturers recommendation) and our tool designs typically produced les than 5% for sprues and runners.

Thus, when things are going properly, there was no "scrap" that needed to be managed.

When things went wrong, the plastic was contaminated with other added components that could be a different plastic, lubricant, metalic pieces and such in any variety of combinations.

The problems that I anticipate.

The variety of feedstock could become catastrophic if a low molecular weight item was introduced when the settings were appropriate for the more exotic materials.

Some of these parts would have more than 60% ash that would almost maintain shape.

The ash produced would be considered hazardous for multiple reasons.

The collected products from pyrolysis would not be consistent, day to day.

There was no commercial market for this material, so why invest management effort, staff, capital, risk management etc. Not core business!

Even with our facility processing 5 tons per day, total yield would be maybe 50kg of feedstock. If we got 50% yield at $5/kg that's only $125 per day and would not cover wages.

With new work, we sometimes have lots that would be 5 tons of homogeneous material (PVC pipe) and cannot get an interested recovery group to take it for free!!

Thank you so much just an engineer, I am literally getting a picture of what you are trying to explain.... the ash that maintain shape is the most important problem and because it is deleterious to the environment with no ready market for it makes the whole process of the pyrolysis of glass fibre not too economically attractive.

I have gathered and read that it is more amenable to Carbon fibre reinforced polymers. Have you had any experience with that yet?

None with carbon fibre. Left that industry six years back.

Considering that your basic question is " why companies are not investing in the use of pyrolysis to recycle fibre reinforced polymers, (glass FRPs and carbon FRPs)", based on the answers from

• lyn - 01/23/2016 9:21 PM
• phoenix911 - 01/24/2016 6:26 PM
• phoenix911 - 01/25/2016 7:03 AM
• Just an Engineer - 01/26/2016 6:43 AM

it would seem that the reasons for NOT using pyrolysis have already been alluded to, without yielding any specific information that might compromise any data that may be of economic disadvantage to their processes and products.

The reason for your need for this information will determine how much research you put onto your effort.

If I were given a problem like this, my first step would be to consider glass and carbon FRP's, say assign a column or page(s) to each type.

Next list the binders for each and the necessary temperatures for pyrolysis.

Then equipment required for the process.

Next, final products at the minimum temperature required for complete pyrolysis.

Continue until you've equipment covered costs, environmental factors, value of resulting product and so on.

Then repeat for different temperatures changing variables as determined by your end requirement.

As you can probably envision, this procedure will require numerous iterations until you reach the values you find most profitable.

Thank you Casper for you bottom- up analytical approach. Thank you all for your comments. I have learnt and I am still learning. I am still open to more comments as they come.

Thanks Y'all