Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastics in Space: Life Cycle Assessment towards Improved Sustainability of Space Vehicles

Abstract

Composite materials, specifically carbon fiber reinforced plastics (CFRPs), are used in various applications such as the automotive, aerospace, and renewable energy industries, thus increasing their global production and volume consumption and creating a subsequent increase in CFRP waste. Especially in space applications and Vega launcher construction, the use of CFRP components to replace metal envisages significant benefits in the use phase by reducing weight and fuel consumption requirements. The current and future waste management and environmental legislation, considering the actual and impending EU framework on waste management, requires all engineering materials to be properly recovered and recycled from EoL products. In this study, the potential of recycling and the subsequent environmental benefits have been assessed by investigating the EoL of CFRPs through a life cycle assessment (LCA). LCA is a valuable tool for evaluating a composite material’s environmental ecological burdens over its lifetime. Therefore, it is important to the composites industry as a material selection tool when determining the applicability of recycled composites in the design phase. Particularly, the benefits from recycling methods were systematically studied in order to assess the environmental impacts of EoL scenarios, to underline the importance and necessity for the maturity increase in recycling technologies for CFRPs.