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Life cycle assessment of a steam thermolysis process to recover carbon fibers from carbon fiber-reinforced polymer waste

  • LCA OF WASTE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
  • Published:
The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Carbon fibers have been widely used in composite materials, such as carbon fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP). Therefore, a considerable amount of CFRP waste has been generated. Different recycling technologies have been proposed to treat the CFRP waste and recover carbon fibers for reuse in other applications. This study aims to perform a life cycle assessment (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impacts of recycling carbon fibers from CFRP waste by steam thermolysis, which is a recycling process developed in France.

Methods

The LCA is performed by comparing a scenario where the CFRP waste is recycled by steam-thermolysis with other where the CFRP waste is directly disposed in landfill and incineration. The functional unit set for this study is 2 kg of composite. The inventory analysis is established for the different phases of the two scenarios considered in the study, such as the manufacturing phase, the recycling phase, and the end-of-life phase. The input and output flows associated with each elementary process are standardized to the functional unit. The life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is performed using the SimaPro software and the Ecoinvent 3 database by the implementation of the CML-IA baseline LCIA method and the ILCD 2011 midpoint LCIA method.

Results and discussion

Despite that the addition of recycling phase produces non-negligible environmental impacts, the impact assessment shows that, overall, the scenario with recycling is less impactful on the environment than the scenario without recycling. The recycling of CFRP waste reduces between 25 and 30% of the impacts and requires about 25% less energy. The two LCIA methods used, CML-IA baseline and ILCD 2011 midpoint, lead to similar results, allowing the verification of the robustness and reliability of the LCIA results.

Conclusions

The recycling of composite materials with recovery of carbon fibers brings evident advantages from an environmental point of view. Although this study presents some limitations, the LCA conducted allows the evaluation of potential environmental impacts of steam thermolysis recycling process in comparison with a scenario where the composites are directly sent to final disposal. The proposed approach can be scaled up to be used in other life cycle assessments, such as in industrial scales, and furthermore to compare the steam thermolysis to other recycling processes.

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Funding

The authors of this paper would like to thank the French Agency for Environment and Energy Management (ADEME) and Alpha Recyclage Composites for their financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. RAPSODEE Research Center, University of Toulouse, Mines - Albi, Campus Jarlard, 81013, Albi, France

    Andréa Oliveira Nunes, Luciano Rodrigues Viana, Pierre-Marie Guineheuc, Radu Barna & Yannick Soudais

  2. Department of Production Engineering, University of São Carlos, Campus Sorocaba, Rodovia João Leme dos Santos, Km 110, Sorocaba, São Paulo, 18052-780, Brazil

    Andréa Oliveira Nunes, Virgínia Aparecida da Silva Moris & Jane Maria Faulstich de Paiva

Authors
  1. Andréa Oliveira Nunes
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  2. Luciano Rodrigues Viana
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  3. Pierre-Marie Guineheuc
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  4. Virgínia Aparecida da Silva Moris
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  5. Jane Maria Faulstich de Paiva
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  6. Radu Barna
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  7. Yannick Soudais
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andréa Oliveira Nunes.

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Responsible editor: Shabbir Gheewala

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Nunes, A.O., Viana, L.R., Guineheuc, PM. et al. Life cycle assessment of a steam thermolysis process to recover carbon fibers from carbon fiber-reinforced polymer waste. Int J Life Cycle Assess 23, 1825–1838 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-017-1416-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-017-1416-6

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