Recycling of Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic-Containing Waste and Iron Oxide-Containing Dusts as Aggregates in Metallurgical Processes

Materials (Basel). 2025 Apr 17;18(8):1838. doi: 10.3390/ma18081838.

Abstract

The recycling of waste materials that are usually expensive to dispose of, such as carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) dust and ferrous dust or sludge, can open up interesting economic prospects and free up landfill space. The agglomeration process is used to combine these two types of waste and produce an aggregate that can be used in shaft furnaces. The carbon contained in the CFRP dust serves as a potential reducing agent in metallurgical processes. The report shows the technical parameters of the wet agglomeration with subsequent sintering for the production of the pellets and provides evidence of the material recycling of the carbon fiber waste. A comparison with primary pellets shows the suitability.

Keywords: CFRP; agglomeration; carbon-fiber for raw material utilization; metallurgical processes; pelletizing; recycling.