Eco-Floor - Rezyklierte Carbonfaser Materialien und Recyclingkonzepte für umweltfreundliche und impactresistente Bodenplatten für zivile Luftfahrzeuge - Garn- und Bandherstellung

The EcoFloor project aimed to develop a sustainable sandwich floor panel for aircraft cabins. Recycled carbon fibers (rCF) were used as mechanically resilient cover layers, while cork and PES foam were used as core materials. Current challenges in rCF processing—such as inhomogeneities, low process stability, and insufficient fiber alignment—were to be overcome by developing a continuous process chain. The project developed a customized carding and consolidation technology for the production of highly oriented rCF tapes. The most successful variant (95% rCF / 5% CoPA) enabled stable fabric production and further processing. Production speeds of up to 5 m/min demonstrate the upscaling potential. In addition, inline monitoring systems were implemented for quality control. The rCF tapes produced and the sandwich demonstrators made from them are well suited for applications in cabin floors. Based on this, a concept for the recyclable return of the sandwich floor panel was developed, which enables the material separation of the top layer and core material and takes into account the downstream recycling of the CFRP top layers by pyrolytic or mechanical processes. The results make an important contribution to the industrial use of rCF in high-quality lightweight construction applications and form the basis for further development and approval work in the aviation sector.