PORT ANGELES — The Composite Recycling Technology Center announced an agreement with a European company that will allow the Port Angeles nonprofit to expand the types of products it can develop.
The CRTC announced the memorandum of understanding Tuesday with ELG Carbon Fibre Ltd., based in Coseley, England, to collaborate on carbon fiber recycling.
Under the terms of the agreement, the CRTC and ELG will develop ways to use carbon fiber that is reclaimed by ELG’s pyrolysis process and turn it into products that can positively impact people’s lives, said CRTC COO David Walter.
“Now we can go out and work on products we couldn’t do before with just cured aerospace-grade linear material,” Walter said. “Now we can make shapes and molds we couldn’t do before.”
He said it’s an opportunity to work in the automotive industry or do more in the high-performance sporting goods industry.
The agreement gives the CRTC access to ELG’s thermoresins and thermoplastics, which have different properties than the carbon fiber the CRTC currently has access to, Walter said.
ELG breaks down cured material and mixes it with thermoplastics.
The CRTC now has a supply of pre-preg and pre-cured scrap aerospace-grade carbon fiber from Toray Composites of America.
Walter said the agreement is also a “total solution” for carbon-fiber scrap.
The CRTC can take pre-preg and pre-cured carbon fiber and ELG can process post-cure carbon fiber.
ELG has announced it will set up a processing center in the United States that should be operational by 2019.
Until then, the CRTC will focus on research and development with the material. Once the facility is operational, ELG will begin shipping more material to the CRTC, Walter said.
“We’ve been working on this for a while, and it gives us access to technology that we need,” he said. “This is an important step, and now we’ll move into the technical side and start sharing information and develop projects.”
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Reporter Jesse Major can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at jmajor@peninsula dailynews.com.
