Environmental impacts of recycling and accidents in carbon fibre composite life cycles

Research Project, 2023 – 2026

This research project aims at shedding light on the life cycle environmental impact of carbon fibre composites (also known as carbon fibre reinforced polymers, CFRPs), and more specifically, when
material recycling and accidents are considered. Research activities focus on the gathering of data for CFRP recycling and accidents as well as method development for inclusion of CFRP recycling and accidents in life cycle assessment (LCA). The project aims to answer the following research questions:
• What are the environmental impacts of CFRP recycling processes and of accidents, such as
collisions and fires?
• How can methodological challenges and data gaps be managed in LCAs of CFRP products
that include CFRP recycling processes or accidents, e.g. related to allocation in recycling,
unintended or rare events and prospective contexts?
• What are the environmental hotspots and improvement opportunities in the life cycles of
CFRP products that include CFRP recycling processes and accidents and what are preferable
paths forward?