Continuous fiber reinforced thermosets serve a range of industries, from transportation to sporting goods to wind energy. Petroleum derived resins form the basis for the majority of these materials, and such composites are effectively impossible to recycle without substantially degrading the performance of their constituent elements. We report on work designed to directly address these issues. First, we describe investigations to better understand and optimize the properties of bio-derived thermosets based on epoxidized linseed oil (ELO), and demonstrate the creation of high performance bio-derived thermosets and glass-reinforced composites from inexpensive components via this approach. We find that the mechanical properties of these materials rival those of conventional resins and composites. Furthermore, we see evidence of a higher level of damage tolerance vs. conventional systems, highlighting potential performance advantages via this approach as well. Second, we detail our efforts to introduce reworkability into commercially available high performance epoxy resins used in wind energy applications. Inspired by the work of Liebler et al (2011), our efforts focus on the combination of epoxy / anhydride chemistry with transesterification catalysts, and emphasize screening for improved catalyst activity. Catalysts are assessed both for the degree of high temperature creep they enable and also the strength of the materials under the reworking conditions. Discussions of our efforts to realize reworkability in practice will also be presented, as well as the applicability of the same catalysts in the context of our optimized bioepoxy networks. Finally, we report on our attempts to combine these two approaches both in order to better understand their generality and realize a high performance, bio-derived, reworkable fiber composite with significant practical utility.

Sustainable, high-performance fiber composites

249th National Meeting (2015)

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