SEM of
Milled Recyclate For the past few years we have been developing end uses for the recycled carbon fibre. The main end use is in the milled format which is usually used in injection moulding. This Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) picture of milled fibre gives an idea of how clean the material is. Ideally injection moulders would prefer this material to be in a master batch form, that is to say that the material is in a form which causes them the least amount of handling problems. At 200 microns milled carbon fibre is like dust and is particularly difficult to handle.

Milled fibre
in Pellet form. To overcome this problem we have been running pelletising trials using a number of inert binders. The resultant pellets can be in the size range of 1mm up to 5mm depending on the end users requirements.

Dry Pressed
Tablets. In addition to this we have been experimenting with pressed milled carbon using no binder at all. The tablets on the left were made at 16 tons pressure. We are continuing our research into smaller tablet sizes.

Chopped
Recyclate. One of the more common uses of carbon fibre is in the chopped form (left). Chopped fibre is also used in injection moulding and has several other uses such as non-wovens, Bulk Moulding Compound (BMC) and Sheet Moulding Compound (SMC). We have successfully chopped 6 and 12 mm. We are also looking into chopped strand mat.