This month our beautiful team, ARGAL technical and administration departments, has participated the presentation regarding the results of the EcoCarbonio project at Kilometro Rosso.

“Carbon fiber can be reborn” is the theme of EcoCarbonio, one of the 33 winning projects of Regione Lombardia - “Call Hub Research and Innovation” . 

The initial plan, worth 70 million euros, was promoted thanks to initially 50.2 million from the European resources of the Regional Operation Program (POR) of the 2014-2020 cycle of the European Regional Development Fund, to which were added 19.8 million of regional co-financing resources and eventually another 44.5 million.

The idea stems from a patent developed by the University of Bergamo and ENEA, which aims to give carbon fiber a second life. A material that has long attracted the attention of the Agency due to its high mechanical performance in relation to its weight; very resistant and very light and for this reason today increasingly used in the field of transport and in particular in the aviation sector. In fact, most of the planes coming out of Airbus or Boeing shipyards today are 50% made of this material, which is normally sent to a landfill at the end of its life.

The project aims to build a sort of future supply chain for the recovery of carbon fiber in order to give it a new life.

The first step is making the recycled carbon fiber into raw thread, then transform it into a real fabric, the composition of the yarn is changed right away to facilitate the weaving process, becoming 60% carbon fiber and 40% polyester. The result can then be subjected to a resin treatment to provide the material with new properties, and the final appearance is of a very raw industrial product, which looks like hemp sacks. This product can be found today in many fields, from aeronautics to supercars up to the nautical sector, and well, in our best pumps too!