Recycling of carbon fiber/peek composites

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is twofold 1) to review existing research work on recycling of polymer composites materials and 2) to present our work on the recycling of carbon fiber reinforced polyetheretherketone (CF/PEEK) waste as it is an expensive material worth recycling. In general, the waste and used polymer composite materials are recycled using 1) material recycling (material reuse), 2) chemical recycling and 3) thermal recycling methods. A short review will highlight the merits and shortcomings of the available methods. In this study, the authors recycled CF/PEEK using both the comminution and fiber recovery methods. In fiber recovery method, both fibers and matrix materials are separated and recovered from the composite using chemical dissolution and precipitation technique. Initial trial showed that the fiber recovery method was not able to fully separate the carbon fibers from the PEEK. Results from the comminution method suggest that it is feasible to adopt this method to recycle CF/PEEK. © 1998 Trans Tech Publications.