Carbon fiber is a widely used in a lot of industries, notable for its strength. As well as being expensive, it’s very difficult to recycle, but not impossible.
Carbon fiber is one of the most impressive materials out there. It is stronger than steel, yet so lightweight that it’s used in everything from airplanes and tough parts for supercars to high-end bikes and tennis rackets. Its strength-to-weight ratio is unmatched, which makes it a go-to for industries that care about performance and efficiency. With more carbon fiber products being manufactured than ever before, the question of what happens to all this material at the end of its life is becoming more important.
Yes, carbon fiber can be recycled, but the process is far from simple. While recycling helps reduce environmental waste and greenhouse gas emissions, the challenges in breaking down and reclaiming carbon fiber make it a complicated, costly, and often limited practice.
In most cases, the quality of recycled fiber isn’t quite good enough for high-performance industries, so it gets downcycled into lower-grade products. That’s just one of the many problems with carbon fiber.
