The Recovery of Carbon Fiber from Carbon Fiber Reinforced Epoxy Composites for Train Body

철도차량용 폐 복합소재에서의 탄소섬유 회수

Recently, the amount of thermosetting plastic wastes have increased with the production of reinforced plastic composites and causes serious environmental problems. The epoxy composites, one of the versatile thermosetting plastics with excellent properties, cannot be melted down and remolded as what is done in the thermoplastic industry. In this research, a series of experiments that recovers carbon fibers from carbon fiber reinforced epoxy composites for train body was performed. We experimentally examined various decomposition processes and compared their decomposition efficiencies and mechanical property of recovered carbon fibers. For the prevention of tangle of recovered carbon fibers, each composites specimen was fixed with a Teflon supporter and no mechanical mixing was applied. Decomposition products were analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM), gas chromatography mass spectrometer (GC-MS), and universal testing machine (UTM). Carbon fibers could be completely recovered from decomposition process using nitric acid aqueous solution, liquid-phase thermal cracking and pyrolysis. The tensile strength losses of the recovered carbon fibers were less than 4%.