REINFORCEMENT | ADDITIVES
landfill,” said Daniel Flagg, CTO at Vartega. The company can also handle post-industrial waste that is already on spools, but Flagg noted that Vartega’s unique ability is in handling the more challenging pre-spooled waste. “We take this tangled ‘spaghet- ti’ fibre, add sizing to make it compatible with the target polymer, chop the fibres, and manufacture them into our EasyFeed Bundle.” Flagg noted that the rCF portfolio includes a
general-purpose sizing for polar polymers, a sizing for higher-temperature polyamides, and a sizing for PP. Because the rCF is pre-consumer, it maintains similar properties to conventional chopped CF and can be a drop-in replacement to virgin chopped CF. In May 2023, the company scaled up from a 200 tonnes/yr pilot scale to its current commercial production facility, which has a capacity of 2,000 tonnes/yr. Vartega said its rCF has a 96-99% lower carbon footprint than virgin CF at a 20-50% cost reduction. The company has compounding capabil- ity that it uses for formulation and application development work. It can also produce small batches of commercial rCF-filled thermoplastic compounds. “Carbon fibre is still relatively niche, but we want to make it more accessible for more applications,
and bringing up our volume to commercial level is a part of reaching that goal,” Flagg said. Target applications include consumer electron- ics and automotive, where the company has had success in small components and is also working on parts for electric vehicles. Sporting goods are another growing area for rCFRT, particularly using injection moulding, to take advantage of CF’s performance benefits over GF. Syensqo and Vartega recently formed a technical
Above: Vartega’s EasyFeed Bundles are recycled carbon fibre built for
thermoplastic compounding
IMAGE: VARTEGA
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