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Presentation Plan
End-of-life aircraft structures Airbus & Boeing Initiatives
Composites Facts
Manufacture
Recycling of Composites Specifications
Order
EU Research
Processes: Conventional, Reclaimed Fibers,Pyrolysis
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End-of-life aircraft structures
More than 4,000 airliners will reach their end-of-life between 2005 and 2025 at a
rate of around 200 aircraft per year - but how will they be disposed of?
Up to now, most have gone to scrap yards [Boneyards], some have been used
for ground training, while the rest have been left to rot next to runways.
Cost of dismantling is higher than the scrap value!
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Cheaper to invest on low cost lands (of no value) to create
Boneyards of retired and crashed aircraft structures.
End-of-life aircraft structures
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Airbus Initiatives
Process for Advanced Management of
End-of-Life of Aircraft (PAMELA), the
EUR2.4 million project aims to set best
practice in this field while demonstrating
that 85 percent to 95 percent of aircraft
components can be recycled, reused orrecovered.
Airbus facility in southwest France at
Tarbes Airport, where procedures for the
decommissioning and recycling of aircraft
in environmentally controlled conditions
will be tested.
PAMELA members are:
SITA: Waste management firm;
EADS Sogerma Services: Maintenance co.,
EADS Corporate Research Centre in
France
Hautes-Pyrenees regional government.
The PAMELA project at Tarbes in France
[A300B2-200]
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Boeing Initiatives
Aircraft Fleet Recycling Association(AFRA)s - objectives are to develop acode of conduct for retired aircraftmanagement, establish next-generationstandards and practices within a year of
the codeslaunch, and then expandthose standards.
AFRA members are:
Milled Carbon & Adherent Technologies
Air Sa lvage International: UK-basedaircraft disassembly and parts recoveryfirm;
WINGNet: UK aerospace consortium
focused on the sustainable use ofmaterials;
Huron Va lley Fritz West: Tucson- basedrecycling company.
Europe Aviation & Bartin
The AFRA coalition has two locations:
Chateauroux Air Centre in south ofParis.
Evergreen Air Center in Marana,northwest of Tucson, Arizona.
AFRA operations at Chateauroux airport
in France
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Composites: Facts
The production of glass fiber composite in
the EU-15 is estimated at 280,000
300,000 tons per year; France, for example,
has an estimated annual discharge of end-
of-life glass fiber products between 45,000
and 50,000 tons.
The wor ld production of carbon fiber yarns
(from polyacrylonitrile) is only a fraction of
that of glass fiber: it was 32,000 tons in
2007 (Europe:8,500 tons).
Recycling and disposal of composites
concerns the end-of-life aircraft structuresthat contain carbon fiber composites.
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Recycling: Specification codes
PET: poly ethylene terephthalate
H/LDPE: high/low density polyethylene
PVC: poly vinyl chloride; PP: poly propylene; PS: polystyrene
Polycarbonate, nylon, acrylic or composite; PA6 GF30/M20 FR: polyamide-6 (caprolactam- based nylon)
30% g lass fibre
20% minera l filler
flame retardant
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Recycling: Order
Reuse
consider re-use at the design state
Recycle
potential for comminuted waste as filler
Pyrolysis/Hydrolysis etc for materials recovery, e.g. Milled Carbon Ltd.
Catalytic Conversion
resin dominant composites
Incineration
with energy recovery
Landfill
only if all else fails.
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Recycling: Conventional Methods
Composite recycling by grinding, shearing, chipping, or flaking the composite into
suitable size to be used as filler material in new moulded composite parts.
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Recycling: Reclaimed Fibers
Short length carbon fibers used for Electromagnetic interference shielding and radio
frequency shielding of electronic equipment.
Shredded carbon fibers, 100 -300 microns length, embedded in a thermoplastic
matrix serves as an effective Faradays cage on the electronic side, and
simultaneously as a reinforcing structure for the plastic housing;
Shredded carbon fibers, 10 - 50 microns length, added to liquids as an inert
emulsifier: giving paints, sealants,adhesives, bonders and cosmetics the required
viscosity (or consistency).
Demand for chopped and milled carbon fiber
is projected to steadily grow.
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Wind Turbine Blade part before & after pyrolysis
Recycling: Pyrolysis
Pyrolysis, thermal decomposition of the polymer at high temperature baths ofmolten salt (that keeps the oxygen out). At temperatures between 400 and 500Centigrade, the thermo-set matrices (in the case of carbon composites:epoxyresins) will depolymerize and eventually decompose.
This method is suitable for certain types of composite recycling, whosecomposite parts typically contain large quantities of filler.
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Recycling: Catalytic Conversion
Catalytic conversion is a tertiary recycling
method that produces chemicals or fuels from
scrap or waste products.
The first steps in recycling the complex mixtures
in scrap aircraft composite materials are
mechanical size reduction and the extraction of
carbon fibers.
Batch reactor process [ATI] mixes the scrap
composite, after, with a heat transfer f luid and
catalyst.
The mix is then processed under increased
temperature and pressure. By-products such as phenolic compound are
used to produce phenolic-based adhesives for
the wood industry.
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Recycling : Incineration & Others
Glass fiber composites can be recycled by combustion in a regular cement
oven: the glass silicate will turn into cement and the matrix resin will burn without
cinders and yield its caloric value to the process.
For the cement oven, metal parts must be removed before incineration, and the
matrix may not contain more than 0.5% chlorine (for instance: pvc, or chlorine-
containing coatings).
Complex composites and Aramid fibers can be recycled by exposing them to
electromagnetic waves in the form of microwaves inducing energy into the
composite material, leading to a separation of fibers and matrix. The separation
operation can be assisted by a suitable solvent.
Other processes such as acid digestion could be used to reclaim the fibers.
However, this process appears to be impractical from an environmental point of
view. Acid digestion uses hazardous chemicals and creates a mixture that will
require further processing.