Palola, SariannaLaurikainen, PekkaGarcía-Arrieta, SoniaGoikuria Astorkia, EgoitzSarlin, Essi2022-03-01Palola , S , Laurikainen , P , García-Arrieta , S , Goikuria Astorkia , E & Sarlin , E 2022 , ' Towards Sustainable Composite Manufacturing with Recycled Carbon Fiber Reinforced Thermoplastic Composites ' , Polymers , vol. 14 , no. 6 , 1098 , pp. 1098 . https://doi.org/10.3390/polym140610982073-4360researchoutputwizard: 11556/1280Publisher Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.Currently, the vast majority of composite waste is either landfilled or incinerated, causing a massive burden on the environment and resulting in the loss of potentially valuable raw material. Here, conventional pyrolysis and reactive pyrolysis were used to reclaim carbon fibers from aeronautical scrap material, and to evaluate the feasibility of using reclaimed carbon fibers in structural components for the automotive sector. The need for fiber sizing was investigated as well as the behavior of the fiber material in macroscopic impact testing. The fibers were characterized with the single fiber tensile test, scanning electron microscopy, and the microbond test. Critical fiber length was estimated in both polypropylene and polyamide matrices. Tensile strength of the fiber material was better preserved with the reactive pyrolysis compared to the conventional pyrolysis, but in both cases the interfacial shear strength was retained or even improved. The impact testing revealed that the components made of these fibers fulfilled all required deformation limits set for the components with virgin fibers. These results indicate that recycled carbon fibers can be a viable option even in structural components, resulting in lower production costs and greener composites13168638enginfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessjournal article10.3390/polym14061098Recycled carbon fiberReactive pyrolysisInterfacial shear strengthThermoplasticMicrobondRecycled carbon fiberReactive pyrolysisInterfacial shear strengthThermoplasticMicrobondGeneral ChemistryPolymers and PlasticsSDG 9 - Industry, Innovation, and InfrastructureProject IDinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/730323/EU/Large scale demonstration of new circular economy value-chains based on the reuse of end-of-life fiber reinforced composites/FiberEUseinfo:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/730323/EU/Large scale demonstration of new circular economy value-chains based on the reuse of end-of-life fiber reinforced composites/FiberEUseFunding InfoThis research was partly funded by FINNISH CULTURAL FOUNDATION, grant number 00210821, and EU H2020-IND-CE project “FiberEUse” (grant agreement number 730323).This research was partly funded by FINNISH CULTURAL FOUNDATION, grant number 00210821, and EU H2020-IND-CE project “FiberEUse” (grant agreement number 730323).http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126312541&partnerID=8YFLogxK