Experiment-Driven Life Cycle Assessment of a Recycled Cfrp Automotive Component with Preserved Fibre Reinforcement Architecture

Abstract

The use of recycled carbon fibres (rCF) in carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) is attracting interest for automotive applications due to the economic benefits and lower carbon footprint during production over virgin carbon fibres. However, the mechanical performance of recycled CFRP (rCFRP) is currently significantly lower compared with virgin CFRP (vCFRP), due to a loss of fibre reinforcement architecture. This necessitates a thicker and heavier part design potentially deteriorating rCFRP’s cost and carbon emission benefits. This study investigates the effects of fibre architecture preservation during recycling of carbon fibres on the life cycle environmental performance of rCFRP applied to a vehicle roof panel, based on experimentally determined mechanical properties. Experimental results show that rCFRPs with preserved unidirectional and woven fibre architectures have average flexural properties at least 4 times higher than those of current rCFRP with unpreserved fibre architecture, which enables reduction of thickness and mass by 36%-41% and 13%, respectively. A Life Cycle Assessment found that a hypothetical rCFRP roof panel with preserved plain woven rCF reduces the life cycle global warming potential (GWP) by 26% and 11% compared to vCFRP and the current rCFRP, respectively, when used in gasoline vehicle. While in a battery electric vehicle, the GWP reductions expand to 54% and 23%. Similar GWP reduction benefits are determined when unidirectional rCF is used in the rCFRP roof panel. Compared with steel and aluminium counterparts, the rCFRP roof panels with preserved fibre architectures have lower GWP in both the cradle-to-gate and use phases. This paper demonstrates that the recycling approach with fibre architecture preservation offers great opportunities to improve the mechanical and environmental performances of rCFRP for use in the automotive industry.

Keywords: Carbon fiber, Recycling, Mechanical testing, Automotive Industry, Life cycle assessment