As part of the expert conference "Using Raw Materials Efficiently – Successful on the Market", hosted on 16 February 2017 by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, TU Dresden's research project "Raw-material efficient conversion of recycled carbon-fibres through the development of a technology for industrial manufacturing of hybrid yarns to be used in highly stressable CFRP compontens", successfully established at the university's Institute of Textile Machinery and High Performance Material Technology (ITM), has been awarded the German Raw Materials Efficiency Award in the competition category of "Research".

Professor Chokri Cherif, Director of ITM, who was awarded the German President's Award for Innovation in Science and Technology in November 2016, is proud about the accomplishments of his research activities at the Institute: "My research associates, doctoral students and I are delighted to receive this award. I am very happy that the sound and industry-oriented research activities on recycled carbon materials at ITM have led to another scientific success for ITM."

Carbon yarn fibre composites are characterised by excellent strength and rigidity; they are the basis for lightweight construction in the area of aircraft, land vehicle, ship, machine and plant engineering. Currently, production waste and used fibre plastic composites are successfully reprocessed, supplying recycled carbon fibres for the manufacturing of new products; however, the performance capacity is far from being exhausted.

Guided by Dr. Anwar Abdkader, research group leader at ITM, scientists at ITM have succeeded in the further development and optimisation of the procedural steps for the processing and treatment of extremely brittle carbon fibres for new composites. Currently, ITM and leading industry partners are developing a process chain for the development and implementation of novel yarn structures from recycled carbon fibres (RcF). A so-called "Special Carding Machine" dissolves and isolates recycled fibres and merges them into a wide uniform ribbon. Subsequently, various spinning technologies can be employed for the manufacturing of novel hybrid yarn constructions, made of uniformly intermixed recycled carbon and thermoplastic fibres.

Due to parallel fibre orientation, homogeneous intermixing and great fibre length, high performance rCF hybrid yarns, allows for nearly the same tensile strength of carbon fibres in fibre composite materials. These unique technologies enable sustainable and efficient industrial mass production of highly stressable complex CFRP components of steady quality with very short cycle times, for example in electric mobility.

The outstanding research endeavour has decisively been driven forwards by a current DFG-funded project and the industry-oriented collaborative BMBF/FOREL programme "3DProCar - Flexible process chains for thermoplastics integrally manufactured FRP components with complex geometry", where ITM investigates the topic "Development of fibre, textile, preforming- and consolidation processes for the manufacturing of complex composite structures".

Information for journalists:
Dr. Anwar Abdkader
Institute of Textile Machinery and High Performance Material Technology (ITM)
at TU Dresden
Tel .: +49 (0) 351 20250173

http://tu-dresden.de/mw/itm