Regeneration of thermally recycled glass fibre for cost-effective composite recycling: Performance of composites based on PP and Recovered glass fibre

Due to economic and technical reasons, no recycling process for glass fibre composites has been commercialized on a large scale. Thermal recycling processes are promising in terms of potential for commercialization but the reinforcement potential of thermally recycled fibres is too low for the application in composites. In the present study, glass fibres were exposed to elevated temperatures prior to composite processing to imitate a thermal recycling process. The exposure of the fibres to elevated temperatures prior to composite processing caused a significant reduction of the mechanical properties of the composites. The heat treated fibres were regenerated with a post treatment. The regeneration of the glass fibres recovered the mechanical properties of the composites almost completely. Thus, this study shows that composites based on thermally recycled glass fibres have the potential to compete with composites based on ‘new’ glass fibres.