Ensuring circularity of composite materials (Processes4Planet Partnership) (RIA) -

Expected Outcome

Projects are expected to contribute to the following outcomes:

• Reuse of composite material and recovery of secondary raw materials with higher value than currently available;
• Reduction of waste sent to landfill and positive environmental impact;
• Creation of new value streams through new technologies with potential for commercial exploitation; new business opportunities and revenue flows for recycling companies, benefiting particularly SMEs which dominate this sector of the market;
• Increased uptake of novel composites materials in industrial applications e.g. enhanced lightweight designs for transport, currently limited due to costs and adherence by industry to environmental legislation and the end of life directive.

Scope

The European composites market size was worth €16 billion in 2018 and is estimated to register an annual growth rate of 7.5% from 2020 to 2025 owing to increasing demand for lightweight materials in various energy intensive value chains such as wind energy or transport. However, composites are difficult to reuse or recycle as available technologies such as high-temperature pyrolysis, and grinding (to be used as filler material) are either not environment friendly or economically unattractive. In addition, the environmental legislation on recycling of end-of-life components and structures will mean that from 2025, for example, 80,000 tons of fibre reinforced polymer composites will have to be recycled every year in Europe. In this context it is imperative that technologies are found to reuse and recycle these materials in a useful and sustainable manner. Furthermore, new solutions should also be envisaged to allow their recycling with very few or no need to separate them without a compromise to downcycling.

Proposals should:

• propose innovative dismantling and sorting systems enabling reuse and functional recycling of complex composite materials;
• develop and integrate novel solutions for a higher reuse of whole products and components (i.e. products’ reusability, upgradability, etc);
• develop novel, safe, environment friendly and commercially attractive methods of recycling a wide range of composite materials and reuse of secondary raw materials;
• demonstrate at pilot level the feasibility of reuse and/or recycle approaches of composites and its secondary raw materials, for specific applications;
• develop tools that will enable to demonstrate the circularity and the environmental benefits of the solutions tested;
• consider the co-design of learning resources together with local and regional educational organisations for current and future generations of employees, with the possibility of integrating them in existing curricula and modules for undergraduate level and lifelong learning programmes; learning resources should integrate the identification of new skills and should propose innovative learning-teaching methods that meet regional social needs and have a high potential for replication.

Where relevant, any solution proposed for the reduction of the content of toxic elements or compounds in the resulting materials should also include the appropriate management of the hazardous substances removed.

Proposals submitted under this topic should include a business case and exploitation strategy, as outlined in the introduction to this Destination.

This topic implements the co-programmed European partnership Processes4Planet.

Activities are expected to start at TRL 3 and achieve TRL 6 by the end of the project – see General Annex B.

Co-programmed European Partnerships

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