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The composites industry is increasingly recognizing the imperative of sustainability in its operations. New fiber material and biopolymer developments, lifecycle analyses studying the impact of material production, projects applying recyclable materials into various applications — these examples and more are changing how industry thinks about composite materials and their place in the future.

One goal behind Toray’s (Tokyo, Japan) Sustainability Vision for 2050 is to “contribute to a world in which resources are sustainably managed.” Within the last year, the materials company has announced a variety of R&D activities underway to contribute to a more sustainable economy, primarily in the realm of biopolymers:

• The company recently boosted its stake in Thai subsidiary Cellulosic Biomass Technology Co. Ltd. to upgrade cellulosic sugar production. It hopes to commercialize these key polymer materials to produce bio-based fibers, resins and films.
• Technologies are being refined to chemically recycle glass fiber-reinforced nylon 6 parts recovered from end-of-life vehicles, which entails depolymerizing with subcritical water.
• Toray and a research group at the University of Chicago seek to speed up polymer recycling R&D via a jointly developed multi-scale computational predictive technique.
• Establishment of a new research facility will foster sustainable manufacturing innovation, bringing together polymer, chemicals and carbon fiber composite materials researchers, as well as digital transformation professionals and developers with chemical engineering expertise.

For more announcements related to composites sustainability, .

Additional “On the radar” articles cover CFRP propeller blades, thermal conductivity, LCA and more.