Anyone else using recycled carbon fiber fabric?

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#1

I bought a number of rolls of this recycled carbon fiber mat fabric a while ago. It was cheap (like $5 / yard for carpet-thick fabric) and I thought it would save me time cutting up cf fabric to make my sheet molding compound.

I am curious to hear what others are using it for?

I am talking about the non-woven random matrix mat that looks like this:

The seller claimed that it offered 80% of the strength of regular cf. I thought it would be a good way of adding thickness to my cf plates and other parts without adding too much weight. I had other ideas too but the reality was somewhat different to the claims.

The strength was more like 10-20% than 80%. Even relatively thick pieces of cured material were brittle enough to snap by hand. I went back to cutting up fabric to gets the strands for my sheet molding compound.

More recently I have been using the recycled fabric to reinforce molds made from epoxy putty. It seems to do well for this job. The combination adds considerable strength.

I am wondering if others had better luck or found a good way of making it useful?

I haven’t seen anyone talking about it here. I though it would have been a bigger deal given it’s price and conformability.

#2

Looks like painted glas, but the image can make it seem like that.
Are you sure it’s carbon?

#3

I’m positive. It’s a thick mat of chopped recycled cf strands. It feels, looks and behaves nothing like fiberglass strand mat.

Here is some info on the product I am talking about:

http://www.recyclingtoday.com/article/elg-carbon-fibre-jec-world-2016-exhibit/

#4

Zebra, Where can you purchase this? I am curious to give it a try. I read a few articles including yours and it seems interesting at the very least.

Thanks!

#5

I bought mine off eBay a while ago. I haven’t seen it on there since though…

I have seen a bunch of Chinese vendors selling it on Aliexpress (the spiritual home of on-line fraud).

Your best bet would be to ask your regular cf supplier to get some for you.

Personally, I don’t think it’s worth the trouble. It’s only redeeming feature is that it’s cheap and conforms to curves well. It’s ok for reinforcing molds but not much else.

My suggestion would be to use regular chopped cf. when mixed with resin, it behaves the same way except it produces much stronger parts.