US composites manufacturer Hexcel (Stamford, Connecticut; www.hexcel.com) has acquired an equity stake in Carbon Conversions (CC, Lake City, South Carolina / USA; www.carbonconversions.com), a recycler of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic parts, in a deal whose financial terms were not disclosed.

Hexel said the “strategic investment” creates a partnership between it and CC, whilst boosting its own portfolio of next-generation, advanced composite technologies for lightweight materials used in aerospace and industrial applications. "We bought slightly less than a 10% share in the company. We will have a board seat as a result of the investment," Hexcel spokesman Michael Bacal told Plasteurope.com.

Given soaring book orders from Airbus and Boeing – main customers of Hexcel – the company expects mid-single digit revenue growth in 2017 in Commercial Aerospace, a segment which contributed 69% to group sales in 2015. Hexcel’s latest transaction underlines the growing market penetration of recycled carbon fibre materials in the aerospace and automotive industries, compelling users and producers alike to improve ways of recovering waste at the end-of-life cycle instead of burying it in an ever-shrinking amount of space for landfills. Manufacturers of cars and planes, under regulatory pressure to make more fuel-efficient products, increasingly use carbon fibre reinforced polymers (CRP) because carbon fibre is lighter and stronger than aluminium.

In announcing the CC deal, Hexcel CEO Nick Stanage said: “The adoption of carbon fibre reinforced parts is growing rapidly and as it does, extending the lifecycle becomes more critical.” CC chief executive Mark Mauhar said Hexcel would “bring our recycling and repurposing technologies to a broader market”, while the investment “provides for us a valuable recycling material stream and enables us to further expand production capacity and research capability.” The investment also supports joint technology collaboration with Hexcel and business development efforts for specific aerospace applications, Mauhar said.

Interest in carbon fibre recycling is surging, attracting some automotive heavyweights like BMW, Toyota and Hyundai. Drivers of growth are the high price of carbon fibre, lower energy costs of producing recycled carbon fibre compared with those for virgin material and the prospect of never-ending growth of waste volume from manufacturing facilities. BMW is leading the way among automotive companies, teaming up with SGL (Wiesbaden / Germany; www.sglgroup.com) not only to make carbon fibre and use CRP in building the BMW "i" branded models but also to recycle these vehicles. For example, recycled materials are used in the roof of the new BMW i3 and i8 and in the rear seat of the i3. In Asia, Toray (Tokyo / Japan; www.toray.com) and Toyota Tsusho (Nagoya / Japan; www.toyota-tsusho.com) have announced a joint carbon fibre recycling initiative (see Plasteurope.com of 01.03.2016).

According to a report by the Federation of Reinforced Plastics (AVK, Frankfurt / Germany; www.avk-tv.de), carbon fibre demand worldwide may well breach the 100,000 t level in 2020, compared with a 2015 level of 58,000 t. In tandem with this growth, demand for CRP is forecast at 191,000 t in 2022 as it finds its way more and more in materials for car roofs and dashboards, plane passenger doors, cockpits, wind turbine blades and alpine skis. Aerospace is taking up about a third of this projected demand, with composite structures in the fuselage and wing sections accounting for around 50% of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more than half of its rival A350 XWB made by Airbus, AVK said.