Vartega: Providing Recycled Carbon Fiber at Scale
Vartega is North America’s largest carbon fiber recycler, with a capacity (as of 2024) to produce over 2,000 metric tons of recycled carbon fiber. We have the space and early equipment orders in place to triple production in the coming years to meet customer demand for sustainable, high-performance plastic reinforcements.
Vartega’s recycled carbon fiber has a 96-99% lower carbon footprint than virgin carbon fiber. We have proprietary mechanical and chemical recycling processes that allow us to recycle carbon fiber at scale resulting in equivalent performance of virgin chopped carbon fiber.
We currently offer materials in 3 primary formats:
● EasyFeed Bundles™ (for thermoplastic applications).
● Dry chopped fiber (for thermoset applications).
● Carbon fiber-reinforced compounded thermoplastic resins (for injection molding, thermoforming, and 3D printing)
We have found that these 3 material formats of carbon fiber help customers speed up their material innovation efforts. Overall, we have simplified the sampling process so that large brands and suppliers can quickly test recycled carbon fiber. But, that does not mean that recycling carbon fiber is easy.
Vartega dry chopped carbon fiber
Making Recycled Carbon Fiber a Reality
At face value, recycling high-performance materials is simple. After all, they are already high-performance, right? Prior to the launch of Vartega, the carbon fiber industry faced a series of challenges, and a lot of scrap and end of life material ended up in landfills and the availability of high quality and consistent sources of recycled carbon fiber were hard to find. No one had yet found solutions to issues such as:
● Finding reliable suppliers of carbon fiber scrap.
● Developing scalable manufacturing processes to handle different formats of carbon fiber.
● Making the recycled material easy to handle (so that it can be used as a drop-in solution with traditional equipment).
After years of research and development, we have developed several patented and scalable solutions that meet the requirements of high-performance plastic components.
● 100% retention of mechanical properties.
● 96 - 99% less energy utilization than virgin carbon fiber.
● 20% - 50%+ cost reduction compared to virgin carbon fiber.
In order to service our clients and help them accelerate their product development timelines, we also expanded our R&D activity to include thermoplastic compounding, injection molding, and mechanical property testing.
● We have a twin screw extruder for thermoplastic compounding with chopped carbon fiber.
● Our materials testing lab includes an injection molding machine to injection mold sample bars.
● Our mechanical property testing equipment measures properties such as tensile strength and modulus, flex strength and modulus, impact testing, melt flow testing, and heat deflection temperature testing.
This investment in R&D capabilities allows us to better support our customers with rapid product development cycles, quality testing, and assistance in establishing their own competence in compounding with chopped carbon fiber.
How We Do Quality Control and Quality Assurance
In the world of high-performance reinforcement agents, QA and QC is mission-critical.
Vartega has industry-leading certifications to ensure that every batch is up to our customer's standards.
● Vartega® is ISO9001 and ISO14001 certified.
● GRS certification is pending.
● Our EasyFeed Bundles are REACH compliant.
But, as you can imagine, certifications are not enough. Every production lot is sampled multiple times during manufacturing to measure:
● Moisture content
● Sizing content (non-carbon fiber mass)
● Bulk density (tapped and untapped)
● Fiber bundle dimensions (length and width)
These QA and QC processes ensure that every batch we produce hits the highest performance standards for the brands and suppliers we support. CoA certificates are delivered with every shipment.
How Can You Get Recycled Carbon Fiber ASAP?
Our team is committed to supporting brands and suppliers who have high-performance applications and are committed to integrating sustainable alternatives into their supply chain. We’ve grown well beyond the stage where our fiber is used in lab experiments and small volume production.
Today, our company's positive impact can only be realized through commercial-scale applications. If you are looking for high-performance sustainable reinforcement agents for commercial plastic products, please reach out to us here or email us at sales@vartega.com and someone from our team will get back to you.
Our team is committed to recycling carbon fiber at scale. If you feel that this could support your team’s material innovation efforts, please do not hesitate to reach out today!
