近日，美国国家可再生能源实验室Gregg T. Beckham团队研究了环氧胺碳纤维增强聚合物的乙酰解回收。2025年6月4日出版的《自然》杂志发表了这项成果。

碳纤维增强聚合物（CFRP）在全球能源转型的中得到了诸多应用，包括用于轻型飞机和车辆，以及风力涡轮机叶片、集装箱和储气船。鉴于碳纤维复合材料的高成本和能源密集型制造，需要回收策略来回收完整的碳纤维和环氧胺树脂成分。

研究组表明乙酸有效地将CFRP中使用的脂肪族和芳香族环氧胺热固性材料解聚为可回收的单体，从而产生原始的碳纤维。从多个部门解构材料证明了这种方法的广泛适用性，通过2小时的反应提供了清洁的纤维。最佳条件缩放至80.0 g消费后碳纤维复合材料和示范复合材料由回收的碳纤维制成，这些碳纤维又被回收了两次，始终保持其强度。

工艺建模和技术经济分析表明，这种方法具有成本效益，回收碳纤维的最低售价为每公斤1.50美元，而生命周期评估表明，工艺温室气体排放量比原始碳纤维生产低99%左右。总体而言，这种方法可以实现工业碳纤维复合材料的回收，因为它提供了清洁、机械上可行的回收碳纤维和热固性树脂中的可回收树脂单体。

附：英文原文

Title: Acetolysis for epoxy-amine carbon fibre-reinforced polymer recycling

Author: Lahive, Ciaran W., Dempsey, Stephen H., Reiber, Sydney E., Pal, Ajinkya, Stevenson, Katherine R., Michener, William E., Alt, Hannah M., Ramirez, Kelsey J., Rognerud, Erik G., Lincoln, Clarissa L., Clarke, Ryan W., DesVeaux, Jason S., Uekert, Taylor, Rorrer, Nicholas A., Knauer, Katrina M., Beckham, Gregg T.

Issue&Volume: 2025-06-04

Abstract: Carbon fibre-reinforced polymers (CFRPs) are used in many applications in the global energy transition, including for lightweighting aircraft and vehicles and in wind turbine blades, shipping containers and gas storage vessels1,2,3,4. Given the high cost and energy-intensive manufacture of CFRPs5,6,7, recycling strategies are needed that recover intact carbon fibres and the epoxy-amine resin components. Here we show that acetic acid efficiently depolymerizes both aliphatic and aromatic epoxy-amine thermosets used in CFRPs to recoverable monomers, yielding pristine carbon fibres. Deconstruction of materials from multiple sectors demonstrates the broad applicability of this approach, providing clean fibres from 2 h reactions. The optimal conditions were scaled to 80.0g of post-consumer CFRPs, and demonstrative composites were fabricated from the recycled carbon fibres, which were recycled two more times, maintaining their strength throughout. Process modelling and techno-economic analysis, with feedstock cost informed by wind turbine blade waste generation8, indicates this method is cost effective, with a minimum selling price of US$1.50 per kg for recycled carbon fibres whereas life cycle assessment shows process greenhouse gas emissions around 99% lower than virgin carbon fibre production. Overall, this approach could enable recycling of industrial CFRPs as it provides clean, mechanically viable recycled carbon fibres and recoverable resin monomers from the thermoset.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09067-y

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09067-y