- The European MC4 project has been successfully completed after three years of research.
- Its final meeting took place at the GAIKER Technology Centre.
The final meeting and demonstrators' exhibition of the European MC4 project on Multi-level Circular Process Chain for Carbon and Glass Fibre Composites, funded by the European Commission (HORIZON-CL4-2021-RESILIENCE-01 call) was held on 25th and 26th March.
The meeting, which was held at the GAIKER Technology Centre, a member of the Basque Research & Technology Alliance (BRTA), was attended by the Project Officer and the Project Advisor appointed by the European Commission in addition to the project coordinator, PROFACTOR GmbH (Austria) and all the other project partners.
The MC4 project started in April 2022 with the aim of developing short- and medium-term technological solutions to the problem of recycling carbon and glass fibre reinforced composites. The main challenges of this research was to find solutions for the high consumption of these fibre-reinforced plastics (FRPs) due to their high performance,, the increased demand for recycled materials to reduce environmental impact or the need to find ways of managing composite waste other than landfill.
After three years of work, MC4 has come to an end with positive results. Research has been carried out on a recycling alternative based on a chemical process, applicable to cured waste and end-of-life parts of carbon fibre reinforced plastics (CFRPs) already on the market. As a result of this research, the process of solvolysis of CFRPs has been developed on a laboratory scale, selecting a suitable medium and conditions to carry out an acid hydrolysis process of the resin and produce recycled carbon fibres (rCFs) from the composite. The laboratory results have also served as the basis for building a functional pilot plant for the solvolysis of waste CFRPs, in which the core element is a 300 L reactor, to demonstrate the process and clean rCFs have been produced and incorporated into new CFRPs products. It has been determined through this pilot plant that it is feasible to scale this process to an industrial level, which could provide a solution to the management of carbon and glass fibre reinforced composite waste from sectors such as the automotive, naval, aeronautical, sports equipment and urban furniture industries.
In conclusion, the main objective of the project has been fulfilled and different circular solutions for carbon and glass fibre composites have been developed.
Conference on circular economy and composite materials
Coinciding with the final meeting of the MC4 project, the GAIKER Technology Centre and ACLIMA (Basque Environment Cluster) organised the conference on the "Circular economy applied to composite materials" on 27th March, in which the results of the MC4 project and its applications in the automotive, naval, aeronautical, sports equipment and urban furniture sectors were presented.
The conference was held at the Waste Lab Bizkaia facilities (Derio) and was very well received.
More information on the project at: https://www.mc4-project.eu/
This project received funding from the European Commission's HORIZON research and development programme under contract number 101057394
