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Cygnet Texkimp (Northwich, U.K.) and hydrogen powertrain solutions developer  (Nuneaton, Warwickshire, U.K.) have partnered to recover high-value, continuous carbon fibers from hydrogen pressure vessels as part of a strategy to improve circularity in the manufacture of filament-wound parts.

The two companies have worked together within the FCVGen2.0 consortium which is led by Ford Motor Co. and partly funded by the Advanced Propulsion Centre UK (APC). The consortium was brought together in 2023 to design, build and trial a small fleet of hydrogen fuel-cell powered Ford E-Transits that maximize value for fleets with high daily energy demands and zero-emissions ambitions. One of its objectives is to develop and evaluate a viable recycling route for end-of-life (EOL) fuel tank components that maintains the properties of, and develops uses for, recycled fiber, in order to accelerate the industrialization of recycling technologies in automotive.

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The partnership between Cygnet Texkimp and Viritech harnessed Cygnet Texkimp’s Fibre Recovery System, which addresses one of the project’s key aims: To develop a workable strategy and technical capability to reclaim maximum value from carbon fiber hydrogen tanks at the end of their usable life and reuse them in new applications. The system, which complements Cygnet Texkimp’s filament winding capability, has been developed to recover continuous, high-quality carbon fibers from filament-wound parts and present them in convenient, bobbin-wound formats for reuse in the manufacture of composites.

As part of the project, Viritech is creating composite pressure vessels — using a novel nano-infused, resin-based material system —  that achieve optimum efficiency in manufacture and operation, while also being readily recyclable. Cygnet’s technology successfully processed Viritech’s graphene nanomaterial and recovered the tank’s carbon fibers at its Innovation Centre using DEECOM (read about the recycling process). The reclaimed fibers were then mechanically unwound and rewound onto bobbins, ready to be reused in conventional applications.

Unlike many other recycling processes, rCF is typically processed in short lengths and thus is limited in its application. Cygnet’s technology, however, recovers and unwinds continuous fibers to enable their use as an alternative to virgin fibers, i.e., more high-value applications, like filament winding, pultrusion, weaving, unidirectional prepreg and towpreg.

“Our partnership with Viritech demonstrates the potential for hydrogen tanks to be recycled at a meaningful rate,” says Dr. Yan Liu, senior R&D specialist at Cygnet Texkimp, who led the project. “Our Fibre Recovery System has an essential role to play in enabling design for recycling and design for disassembly strategies that inform the manufacture of future hydrogen pressure vessel technology. The system closes the loop between our DEECOM fiber recycling solution and our extensive filament winding capability and provides end-to-end processing and recycling capability for composite fibers.”

The two companies are also working together to further develop the filament winding technology as part of a strategy to develop highly efficient and sustainable manufacturing and recycling solutions for hydrogen pressure vessels. This partnership is based around Cygnet Texkimp’s fully automated, five-axis filament winding cell and Viritech’s graphene nanomaterial system.