Characterization of a carbon-ceramic composite, for recycling and upcycling purposes

New policies announced by the European Union at the end of 2019 like the European Green Deal and in particular one of its main building blocks “Circular Economy Action Plan” presents the need to rethink our business models. The linear way we have adopted “take-make-use-dispose” is not sustainable anymore and needs to be changed in favour of a concept of circularity that can’t afford anymore waste disposal in landfills or massive use of incinerators. In a context of continuous technological progress where the materials industry is experiencing a period of fast innovation, there is a strong need to introduce new logics for recycling and reuse of materials, starting from the design stage, by studying alternatives to disposal solutions and by finding material second life applications. As an example, the new generation of high-performance reinforced composite materials, whose diffusion is expected to increase exponentially. This thesis project focuses on the study of a carbon fiber reinforced silicon carbide composite (C/SiC, C/C-SiC) by conducting the following four experimental tests: impulse excitation technique (IET) in order to find the elastic moduli; torsion test in order to calculate the maximum shear strength of a coating layer called “friction layer”; single lap offset (SLO) shear strength test in order to evaluate the shear strength of four adhesives at medium-high temperatures; and laser-spot thermography to measure the thermal diffusivity along the three principal directions. Through this experimental analysis we aim to gain a deeper understanding of the material properties to provide an experiential basis to identify possible recycling processes or inspire new ways of upcycling the material.