Valente, M.; Sambucci, M.; Rossitti, I.; Abruzzese, S.; Sergi, C.; Sarasini, F.; Tirillò, J. Carbon-Fiber-Recycling Strategies: A Secondary Waste Stream Used for PA6,6 Thermoplastic Composite Applications. Materials2023, 16, 5436.
Valente, M.; Sambucci, M.; Rossitti, I.; Abruzzese, S.; Sergi, C.; Sarasini, F.; Tirillò, J. Carbon-Fiber-Recycling Strategies: A Secondary Waste Stream Used for PA6,6 Thermoplastic Composite Applications. Materials 2023, 16, 5436.
Valente, M.; Sambucci, M.; Rossitti, I.; Abruzzese, S.; Sergi, C.; Sarasini, F.; Tirillò, J. Carbon-Fiber-Recycling Strategies: A Secondary Waste Stream Used for PA6,6 Thermoplastic Composite Applications. Materials2023, 16, 5436.
Valente, M.; Sambucci, M.; Rossitti, I.; Abruzzese, S.; Sergi, C.; Sarasini, F.; Tirillò, J. Carbon-Fiber-Recycling Strategies: A Secondary Waste Stream Used for PA6,6 Thermoplastic Composite Applications. Materials 2023, 16, 5436.
Abstract
With a view to sustainable development and circular economy, this work focused on the possibility to valorize a secondary waste stream of recycled carbon fiber (rCF) to produce a 3D printing usable material with PA6,6 polymer matrix. The reinforcing fibers implemented in the present research are the result of a double recovery action: starting with pyrolysis from which long fibers are obtained, used to produce non-woven fabrics and, subsequently, fiber agglomerate wastes obtained from this last process are ground in a ball mill. The effect of a different amount of reinforcement at 5% and 10% by weight on the mechanical properties of 3D printed thermoplastic composites was investigated. Although the recycled fraction was successfully integrated in the production of filaments for 3D printing and therefore in the production of specimens via Fused Deposition Modeling technique, the results showed that fibers did not improve the mechanical properties as expected, due to an unsuitable average size distribution and the presence of a predominant dusty fraction ascribed to the non-optimized ball milling process. PA6,6 + 10 wt.% rCF composites exhibited a tensile strength of 59.53 MPa and a tensile modulus of 2.24 GPa, which correspond to an improvement in mechanical behavior of 21 5 % and 5 21 % compared to the neat PA6,6 specimens, respectively. The printed composite specimens loaded with the lowest content of rCF provided the greatest improvement in strength (+ 9% over the neat sample). Then, a prediction of the “optimum” critical length of carbon fibers was proposed that could be used for future optimizations of the recycled fiber processing.
Keywords
short carbon fiber-reinforced thermoplastic composites; recycled carbon fibers; 3D printing; recoverability; critical length
Subject
Chemistry and Materials Science, Materials Science and Technology
Copyright:
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