Investigation of strength recovery of recycled heat treated glass fibres through chemical treatments

The strength loss of thermally treated glass fibre (GF) at elevated temperature is well reported in literature. This phenomenon even occurs at short period of time such as 25 minutes. In the recycling technologies for composites, GFs are usually recovered by degradation of polymeric matrix with thermal and/or chemical treatments. Therefore thermal effect on the strength of GF is a significant factor when restricting the possibilities of recycling this material for a second life. This study reports on the strength of thermally treated commercial GF after acid treatment and silanization of the fibre surface to achieve a proper combination of treatments which may provide us with the ability to recover the mechanical properties of the heat treated GFs. It is thought that silane coupling agents can directly increase and recover the strength of GFs. Two factors associated with this recovery are the possibility of the sizing repairing the damage on the surface of the heat treated GFs and the reduction of the fibre-fibre friction in the bundle through lubricating effect. GF samples were heat treated at 4500C for 25 minutes and coated with silanes, applying different combinations of hydrochloric acid (HCl) and the two silanes used in this study, γ-Aminopropyltrimethoxy Silane (APS) and γ- Methacryloxypropyltrimethoxy Silane (MPS); these fibres were characterized by single fibre testing for strength. The results obtained demonstrated that the fibre strength improves slightly after combination of HCl and MPS treatment, and has a negative effect when the combination of HCl and APS was used. The surface deposition of silane on the surface of the fibre is also discussed using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM)