ECCM15 - 15 TH EUROPEAN CONFERENCE ON COMPOSITE MATERIALS, Venice, Italy, 24-28 June 2012 1 CARBON FIBRE COMPOSITE WASTE: A COMPARATIVE ASSESSMENT OF RECYCLING AND ENERGY RECOVERY R. A. Witik 1 , R. Teuscher 1 , V. Michaud 1* , C. Ludwig 2,3 , J-A. E. Månson 1 1 Laboratoire de Technologie des Composites et Polymères (LTC), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. 2 Faculté de l’Environnement Naturel, Architectural et Construit (ENAC-IIE), École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland. 3 Paul Scherrer Institut (PSI), Forschungsbereich Allgemeine Energie, CH-5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland *veronique.michaud@epfl.ch Keywords: CFRP, recycling, energy recovery, life cycle assessment. Abstract The increasing use of CFRPs across a variety of industries will result in larger volumes of CFRP waste, which require environmentally appropriate treatment methods. Recent focus has been on the development of recycling processes in order to re-use carbon fibres from waste. However, work, which quantifies the benefits of such an approach against alternatives, is scarce. In this work LCA methodology is used to compare recycling via the pyrolysis process and incineration with energy recovery as potential end of life treatments for CFRP waste. Re- use of resulting recyclate was found to determine which option was environmentally preferable. Recycling was preferable to incineration if reuse of the recovered fibres displaced primary production of carbon fibres. Incineration with energy recovery was found to be preferable if potential applications displaced glass fibre production. 1 Introduction The use of carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) materials is steadily increasing across a range of industries. Worldwide demand for carbon fibres (CF) is rising and annual production volumes are expected to rise from 40,000 tonnes in 2011 to 140,000 tonnes by 2020 [1]. Increased use of these materials today will inevitably lead to increased quantities of waste as the applications in which these fibres reside reach the end of their useful lives. Based on current industry demand estimates, and applying representative residence times for each industry, we estimate that annually, by 2020 there will be approximately 36,000 tonnes of CFRP resident in End of Life (EoL) waste with a further 26,000 tonnes being generated from production processes. Until now fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) waste in Europe has predominantly been disposed of in landfills, with the remainder being incinerated. However, attitudes towards waste treatment have changed to favour waste avoidance, minimisation and recycling. These principles now form the basis of the Waste Framework Directive [2] which lists five possibilities for waste treatment in order of preference: (i) prevention or reduction, (ii) reuse, (iii) recycling, (iv) recovery and (v) disposal. It is now a requirement that this hierarchy be