Fri, 01 March, 2024
We are pleased to announce that EMPHASIZING won the Wildcard Award at The Engineer’s C2i Awards 2024.
The award was presented at a ceremony in London on 29 February, 2024, where members of the project team were in attendance to collect the award.
The Engineer is a London-based monthly magazine that was originally founded by Edward Charles Healey in 1856 and covers the latest innovations in engineering and technology, both in the UK and internationally.
The C2i Award was collected by consortium colleagues from Ford Motor Company, Brunel Composites Centre (BCC) and TWI on behalf of all of the project partners, which also include Gen2plank Ltd, Longworth - Sustainable Recycling Technology, Gestamp and EMS-CHEMIE.
The EMPHASIZING project has already been recognised with a 2024 JEC Group Composites Innovation Award for the partners’ efforts to advance composite material sustainability through the development of recycling methodologies for end-of-life thermoset composite structures.
By turning glass reinforced polymer (GRP) waste into a new, eco-friendly advanced material, EMPHASIZING is helping to facilitate the widespread reuse of composite materials, including end-of-life wind blades and industrial waste.
This is achieved using the DEECOM® process that removes resin and sizing polymers using superheated steam and pressure sequencing without undermining the integrity of the polymer fibres. This leaves the fibres clean and ready for advanced sizing, whereby they are cut into precise lengths and resized with a diverse range of chemistries. This protects the fibres through earlier process steps and facilitates ease of compounding, as well as enhancing the mechanical properties of the recycled fibres, making them appropriate for re-use in different applications. The pellets that are produced are processed into a compound that is ready for moulding and reuse in the automotive sector.
We are delighted that the EMPHASIZING project has been recognised for our work in recycling composite materials while combining environmental awareness with economic viability to propel the composites industry towards a more sustainable, circular economy.
The Emphasizing project has received funding from Innovate UK under No 10035094.