Research database

EUReCOMP aims to provide sustainable methods towards recycling and reuse of composite materials, coming from components used in various industries, such as aeronautics and wind energy. The main pathways to achieve circularity will include: i) repairing, repurposing and redesigning parts from end-of-life large scale products and ii) recycling and reclamation of the materials used in such parts; thus, accomplishing reduction of waste and transformation to high-added value products. Politecnico di Torino (PoliTO) will focus its activity on the atomistic simulation of new methods for recycling based on nanoscale heat and mass transfer phenomena. The recycling processes with the lowest TRL may benefit more from such fundamental materials modelling. In particular, the thermochemical mechanisms underlying supercritical solvolysis and infrared pyrolysis could be simulated to unveil (and thus control) the degradation mechanisms of these innovative processes for some exemplificative carbon-based polymer composites. Simulations by PoliTO would mainly investigate the optimal characteristics of these new recycling processes with atomistic precision. To the best of our knowledge, this could be the first materials modelling study on such mechanisms in the field of composite materials, therefore representing a significant scientific contribution to a faster industrialization of recycling methods with low TRL.