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A sustainable approach to the low-cost recycling of waste glass fibres composites towards circular economy

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journal contribution
posted on 2024-06-18, 19:42 authored by Omid ZabihiOmid Zabihi, M Ahmadi, C Liu, R Mahmoodi, Sulley LiSulley Li, MRG Ferdowsi, Minoo NaebeMinoo Naebe
For practical applications, both environmental and economic aspects are highly required to consider in the development of recycling of fibre reinforced polymers (FRPs) encountering their end-of-life. Here, a sustainable, low cost, and efficient approach for the recycling of the glass fibre (GF) from GF reinforced epoxy polymer (GFRP) waste is introduced, based on a microwave-assisted chemical oxidation method. It was found that in a one-step process using microwave irradiation, a mixture of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) as a green oxidiser and tartaric acid (TA) as a natural organic acid could be used to decompose the epoxy matrix of a waste GFRP up to 90% yield. The recycled GFs with ~92.7% tensile strength, ~99.0% Young’s modulus, and ~96.2% strain-to-failure retentions were obtained when compared to virgin GFs (VGFs). This short microwave irradiation time using these green and sustainable recycling solvents makes this a significantly low energy consumption approach for the recycling of end-of-life GFRPs.

History

Journal

Sustainability (Switzerland)

Volume

12

Article number

ARTN 641

Pagination

1 - 10

Location

Basel, Switzerland

Open access

  • Yes

eISSN

2071-1050

Language

English

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Copyright notice

2020, the authors

Issue

2

Publisher

MDPI