Regeneration of thermally recycled glass fibre for cost-effective composite recycling: increasing the strength of thermally conditioned glass fibres using cost effective recover treatments

The paper reports an extensive study on the regenerating performance of thermally treated glass fibres using two different chemically based treatments routes. The effectiveness of these two different treatments was investigated on strength recovery of glass fibres thermally treated with the conditions imitating composite recycling technology. The regenerated strength levels of these ReCoVeRed fibres must also be further protected and maintained by the use of standard fibre sizing technology similar to standard glass fibre products. Consequently, the effect on fibre strength of the combination of our ReCoVeR treatments with the standard silane coatings was also studied. Significant increase of fibre strength was obtained through the ReCoVeR and coatings treatments, achieving up to 200% increase in fibre strength in comparison with the glass fibre thermally treated.