Recycling Fiberglass Boats.
Amour Fiber Core has developed and is testing structural, industrial, marine, and commercial products utilizing recycled fiberglass materials from fiberglass boats, which can then be manufactured and marketed on an economical basis. Amour Fiber Core combines leading-edge technology and fiberglass reclamation to produce a product line manufactured from recycled materials. Our manufacturing process has been granted a United States patent.
In today’s environmentally sensitive world, we have found an alternative to the traditional raw material supply. Cured waste fiberglass amounts to millions of tons of refuse in the continental United States annually. Our commitment to recycling is reducing this waste from our landfills and producing an environmentally friendly alternative to many other products that are manufactured today.
Rather than fiberglass boats contaminating the land eventually over thousands of years in landfills. Amour can use the crushed product in road surfacing.
Today many things are made from fiberglass, from automotive parts to boats, and bathtubs to wind turbine blades. Fiberglass is lightweight and strong, it is resistant to impact and is waterproof. It does not rot and can be repaired relatively easily, but recycling fiberglass can be done. While the short answer is yes, there is more to it than that. Shredding or grinding the fiberglass destroys many of the glass fibers, reducing their size, strength, and therefore usefulness for future applications. It’s not as simple as recycling other plastics because of the glass fiber content.
The Problems With Fiberglass.
The equipment used to recycle fiberglass without damaging the glass fibers is expensive and the demand for recycled fiberglass isn’t high. But with the increase of products made from fiberglass, it is becoming a larger source of waste that must be dealt with. In 2018, the glass fiber to composites market reached 2.5 billion pounds (1.13 billion KG) and is expected to reach 3 billion pounds in 2024. For many years, yachts and pleasure craft were designed and built without considering disposal requirements at their end of life. So for decades, landfill and incineration have been the two popular disposal methods used by composite industries. Increasing environmental awareness drives us to identify a sustainable disposal method and provide a solution to prevent cumulating waste.
Wind turbine blades made from fiberglass have a lifespan of approximately 20 years. Most manufacturers only warranty the blades for 20 years, so there isn’t much reason to run them longer as they become an insurance risk. This means that many of the first wind turbines are now obsolete and are being replaced by new, more efficient wind turbines. Many of the older blades suffer from delamination on the leading edge from the abrasion of dust in the air. Most of the blades spin with the tip’s speed of around 150 mph so a little dust can do a lot of damage. Interestingly, most wind turbines are shown to pay for themselves in 8 months to 1 year, leaving about 19 years of profit. With wind turbine blades likely to account for some 50,000 tons of waste annually by 2020, growing 4 times by 2034 (according to research quoted by the European Wind Energy Association), the landfill is not a viable long-term solution. Currently, only a few recycling techniques are available to treat such an enormous quantity. So most have been landfilled and many continue to be buried today.
There are three main processing methods used for recycling fiberglass; grinding and incineration.
Fiberglass Grinding
This is the most obvious one, the material is chopped into small pieces and then shredded into small pieces or powders to be reused in other products. Potentially all material that can be reground can be used; there is little or no waste.
The process is labor-intensive and damages the glass fibers. The recycled fiberglass material cannot, therefore, be used the same way as new glass fiber and is generally used as a filler in artificial wood, cement, or asphalt.
Fiberglass Incineration
Burning or “thermal oxidation,” is using the material to create heat for other purposes, such as making steam to power turbines that generate electricity or heating cement kilns. Later, much of the leftover fibers can be added to strengthen the concrete. An unfortunate byproduct of fiberglass incineration for power is ash, which is usually sent straight to a landfill.
The heat content of fiberglass laminates comes from the organic materials in the resin. Most fiberglass contains only 25% to 30% organic material, so its heat content is low, and the ash content is high. Ash is primarily calcium oxide, which comes from the calcium carbonate, boron, and other oxides in the glass
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