Last week, Carbon Conversions’ process of recycling carbon fiber from bicycles for Formula 1 race cars was featured on the Science Channel’s new series “Made by Destruction.” The premise of the show is to give details about how something at the end of its useful life is “destroyed” and then “remade” into something else.
As the episode explains, unlike bicycles with steel or aluminum frames, when carbon fiber bikes hit the dirt a little too hard, they shatter and can’t be fixed. Since carbon fiber doesn’t rust or decompose, these bike frames often end up in a landfill forever. At the Carbon Conversions factory in Lake City, S.C., they chop, crush and cook these bikes to get the precious carbon fiber trapped inside. The episode referred to the ability to rescue the fibers and reconstitute them as “a game changer.”
First, technicians cut the bikes into manageable pieces. A conveyor feeds the carbon fiber parts into a rotary chopper that dices them into even smaller parts using a massive guillotine blade. The chopped pieces are moved to a furnace, where they’re pyrolyzed, which burns away everything but the carbon fibers.
“If the temperature is too cool, the fiber won’t separate from the paint and glue,” the episode says. “Too hot, and you end up with a pile of unusable ash. It took multiple trials to fine-tune the temperature to a thermal sweet spot, and it’s a closely guarded secret.”
