Overview
Europe’s transport industry is on the road to decarbonisation. While it may seem like an uphill struggle, there is no going back: the sector currently represents one third of Europe’s overall CO2 emissions. In this context, the EU-funded FOREST project will use the ‘Reduce, Recovery and Reshape’ methodology to reinforce efforts to decarbonise the transport sector. Specifically, it will develop light parts made of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic and cleaner fuel solutions, reducing fossil fuel use. The project will also introduce revolutionary carbon fibre recovery methods. Lastly, it will study efficient recycling uses of biocomposites.
The transport sector has always been the focus of decarbonization in Europe. FOREST project proposes to combine the Reduce, Recovery and Reshape” drivers to face the decarbonization issues in the transport sector. Reduce: On the one hand, the greenhouse gas emissions of fuel vehicles and the energy consumption of electric vehicles reduction is one of the major dares of the global mobility sector. FOREST will reduce the structural weight of the vehicles by providing light components made of carbon fibre reinforced plastic. In this way, less fuel and energy consumption will be necessary to cover the same distance. On the other hand, fossil sources are being run out more and more. Besides, their use at the End-of-Life (EoL) has a negative impact on the carbon footprint. FOREST will develop new chemistries based on high-biobased content for polymers (bioacrylic, biobenxozaxine, biopolyamide) and additives (bio fire-retardant). In this regard, the fossil sources' dependency will be reduced. Recovery: The CFRP market is expected to increase more and more in the transport sector (aerospace, automotive, and heavy-duty). However, an important issue which has not totally overcome is the recovery of the large volume the carbon fibre waste to provide added value materials. FOREST will implement efficient methods to recover 100% of CF waste to develop high-quality semi-finished materials (non-woven, organosheet/SMC, LFT) for valuable transport applications. Reshape: The use of biobased and recycled materials is a real opportunity for mobility decarbonization but a detriment on the stability and safety properties of the performance could occur. FOREST will research the influence of the multifunctional properties on the biocomposite (mechanical, fire-retardant, and EMI-shielding). Therefore, FOREST will combine the biobased, recycled, and multifunctionality material nature to obtain sustainable solutions for the bus, aeronautic, and automotive sectors.