SBIR Phase I: Sustainable Performance Composites for Energy Efficient Transportation Applications

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project seeks to improve and expand the technology of recyclable thermosets by creating a new class of high performance, cycloaliphatic polyamines that retain an acid-cleavable bond. If successful, this effort will lead to a new class of high-performance composite resins which can be recycled. Increased energy efficiency is leading transportation to rely on lightweight, thermoset composites. But the intractability of traditional thermosets limits the value of recycled composites, and adoption in industry. Industry composites recycling experts estimate the overall scrap cost for the composites industry is between $500 and $750 million a year. Post-manufacturing scrap can range from 5 to 50 percent of the input materials. The global auto composites market alone represents an estimated $4 billion by 2017, while a small volume, composite car line represents roughly 400 metric tons of polyamine curing agent. In the Phase I effort, we will design and synthesize novel, recyclable cycloaliphatic polyamine structures and further formulate them with various epoxy resins to meet the performance and processing requirements for transportation composites manufacturing. Doing so will help composite manufacturers improve costs and meet regulatory compliance for recyclability and manufacturing waste disposal. The intellectual merit of this project will be an expanded knowledge base and chemistry platform for synthesizing and formulating recyclable thermoset resins. Cyclic structures, by nature, provide higher structural rigidity of a molecule. This rigidity translates to an overall higher mechanical performance of a material. For example, composites of higher mechanical strength, glass transition temperature, and faster cure speed can be achieved. New cyclic structures will complement the initial generation of aliphatic polyamines, and enable applications previously unattainable by recyclable aliphatic structures alone, such as transportation composites. Our team has identified and pre-screened target cyclic scaffolds for synthesis. Successfully synthesized molecules will be further screened for physical properties and recyclability. Candidate molecules will then be formulated into full resin systems and optimized for an high pressure resin transfer molding (HP-RTM) process, to meet the processing and cost needs of automotive manufacturers. Partners in the automotive and aerospace industries will aid in testing and evaluating the performance of the formulated material. By creating new recyclable molecules that "mimic" other major industrial classes beyond aliphatic amines, the addressable market for these materials will be expanded and the adoption of recyclable thermoset composites will be accelerated.