Manufacturing Sustainable Carbon Fibres

Today, carbon fibres are commonly used in functional and structural composite systems in the automotive, aerospace, space, and recreational applications due to their high stiffness, high tensile strength, low weight to strength ratio and their high chemical inertness. They are also reasonably tolerant to heat and exhibit low thermal expansion. However, the production of carbon fibres is still oil-based and very energy intensive. With next generation structural applications requiring increasing levels of strong lightweight materials, such as carbon fibres, more sustainable manufacturing routes will become critical to meet NetZero criteria.

This project centres around the development of new sustainable production routes for carbon fibres of high quality. The development of an in-depth understanding of structure properties relationships of such sustainable carbon fibres will be essential for the design of new and efficient synthesis methods. State-of-the-art structural and compositional analyses will be critical in this endeavour.

Close collaboration with the Lightweight Manufacturing Centre at the University of Strathclyde is envisaged.