Abstract:
Environmental hazards caused by the ever increasing composite waste is currently a major concern facing this world. The handling and disposal of this waste is the major contributor in increased CO2 emissions worldwide. Landfilling of the composite waste is a temporary solution but it will result in even more environmental problems as these materials are non-biodegradable and resistant environmental corrosion. Environment friendly disposal of end-of-life (EoL) composite is therefore necessary for sustainable industrial development. A lot of techniques have been devised for recycling of composite but the thermal recycling method is the most promising in this regards due to its potential to recover valuable continuous fibers along with other by products. Although it has great potential for recycling composites, it also results in severe deterioration of the strength of recovered fibers which is a major limitation. In this study, it was attempted to reduce the processing time while maintaining fiber strength via shortened pyrolysis time and partial oxidation followed by chemical etching. There was about 66% to 84% reduction in strength of recycled fibers compared to pristine fibers. However the strength of the pyrolysed single fibers significantly improved after treatment with hot NaOH solution and γ-aminopropyl triethoxysilane (APTES) coupling agent.
