A British entrepreneur is taking plastic pollution from the ocean and recycling it into engineering-grade materials for additive manufacturing (AM) applications.
The 0rCA line from Fishy Filaments Ltd., Cornwall, England, is a family of materials in filament, pellet and micro pellet form, with a common core of recycled nylon 6 (PA6) from commercial fishing nets. It’s being developed as a co-recyclable suite engineered for use in multimaterial AM.
Founder Ian Falconer established the company in 2017 to fight climate change. The focus is now on cleaning up oceans and mitigating the effects of “ghost fishing,” when abandoned fishing gear—lines, nets, pots, traps, floats and other equipment—can continue to trap and kill fish, crustaceans, marine mammals, turtles and seabirds. Such practices contribute 20-30% of ocean plastics, according to ourworldindata.org.
“The specific net type we recycle using our proprietary hardware is called nylon monofilament, or if you are a Cornish fisherman ‘mono,’” Falconer said.
“The plastics industry knows that it sells 150,000 to 200,000 metric tons a year into the commercial fishing industry globally, and by our estimate somewhere under 10% of that currently gets recycled.”
Fishy Filaments’ unfilled Porthcurno filament, made of recycled PA6, has been available since 2019. Its first compounded material to market is PA6 with 10% recycled carbon fiber (CF) by weight.
A second recipe has 17% recycled CF fill for applications that require more stiffness. A third material in development uses graphene doping.
“We’re exploring the markets for further variants that could add functionality within multimaterial AM,” Falconer said.
There is also the potential for non-AM applications. For example, the CF 10% material is proven for use with injection molding in conventional steel molds and with freeform injection molding technology from Addifab ApS, Taastrup, Denmark.
“CF and PA6 have a relatively long history together so they are a known quantity for industry,” Falconer said. “Tooling exists and processes are known. The novelty in 0rCA is recycled CF with recycled PA6, which looks like a first to us, certainly in the AM world.”
Fishy Filaments is talking to potential partners about developing a unidirectional thermoplastic pre-preg (composite layup) tow tape using recycled long-strand CF. “Clearly 200 kt per annum is more than current AM needs or wants,” Falconer noted. To maximize carbon savings and minimize commercial risk, the company is developing a mix of mass-market, mid-range, and high-value solutions, according to Falconer.
Down the road, he envisions applications in electric vehicles, where the cabin is made of composites. But perhaps a better market entry point, he acknowledged, may be smaller mobility solutions such as bikes, boards, unmanned aerial vehicles and wheelchairs.
Meanwhile, recent European regulations mandating recycled content has sparked interest from packaging producers. “We are engaging with some select packaging r&d programs where we would be part of a whole system approach rather than a simple drop-in replacement,” Falconer said.
Because 0rCA’s line uses PA6 as the common polymer chemistry, the material should still be available for depolymerization within existing chemical recycling processes even after multiple uses, Falconer said. That’s one of his goals, along with enabling co-recyclable products (without dismantling them) and slashing carbon impact with a high percentage of recycled content. He also wants to provide a development route from prototyping to mass production.
The material in recycled fishing nets may exist for many years, but in useful applications on land—not as pollutants in the water.
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