The continuing growth of the polymers based materials, but especially its uses, has led to an increased focus on the conservation and management of resources used in industrial production. A forward-looking approach may be to convert the global economy into a sustainable one in which bioenergy, biofuels and bio-based products are the main components.
The need to find solutions that reduce the consumption of non-renewable fossil products and the growing concern for the environment have been the foundation of our study. The main focus of this work is on developing new eco-friendly, recyclable and high performance thermosets and carbon fibers-reinforced composites (CFRCs). These thermosets and CFRCs were designed by applying industrial processing specifications and achieving feasible performances for applications involving specific or extreme conditions such as space or aerospace. At the outset, the polymeric matrices were developed starting from two bio-based and renewable resources, namely an aliphatic compound derived from vegetable oils (epoxidized linseed oil, ELO) and an aromatic one based on phloroglucinol which is extracted from marine brown algae or bark of fruit (triglycidyl ether of phloroglucinol, TGPh). These two matrices have been reinforced with carbon fibres (fiber volume fraction of ~0.8) to develop high-end composites. The designed thermosets and CFRCs were subjected to several physico-chemical, thermo-mechanical or resistance tests to validate their characteristics and its ability to replace petrochemical materials in aerospace and space areas. By DMA analyses, remarkable stiffness of the materials was exhibited, presenting storage modulus at RT up to ~43 GPa, and high glass transition value with a maximum of 374 °C for TGPh-based composite. Mechanical tests revealed good compressive properties of the CFRCs with an ultimate compressive stress of ~400 MPa for aromatic-based composite and about 300 MPa for the aliphatic one, and high interfacial properties with ILSS values ranged between 42-63 MPa. The high-quality of the fiber-matrix bonding given by ILSS results was also confirmed by SEM. Moreover, the CFRCs shows an excellent moisture resistance, the absorbed water in 24h being ~0.25%. TGA tests display a high thermal stability of the materials, with T5% ~ 350 °C. The LOI parameter superior to 30% demonstrates a fireproof ability of the bio-based CFRCs. This inherent flame-retardant property, without supplementary addition of any flame retardants, was also confirmed by UL-94 fire test standard procedure obtaining HB and V-1 rank results of evaluation. The applicability of the materials in the space domain was also confirmed by the outgassing tests, obtaining RML, CVCM and TML values within the values required by space standardisation. Finally, the designed composites proved its capacity to be chemically recycled in 1N NaOH and also thermally repaired. These materials demonstrate required properties for high-tech industries such as aeronautic, aerospace or space.