ELG Carbon Fiber sells short fiber business, rebrands to Gen 2 Carbon

Carbon fiber recycling company ELG Carbon Fibre Ltd. (ECF, Coseley, U.K.) announced on May 10 that it has divested its short fiber business to recycled fibers company Procotex Corp. SA (Belgium). ECF’s management has also launched a new growth platform, Gen 2 Carbon, which will continue to develop the company’s recycled long carbon fiber business, which primarily serves the composites industry with carbon fiber and thermoplastic nonwovens.

Prior to this agreement with Procotex Corp. SA, in early 2020 the Haniel Group (Duisburg, Germany) announced a strategic review of ELG Haniel, the parent company of ECF. This led to a decision to focus on the metals recycling activity (stainless steel and superalloys) and the need to find a new owner for the company’s increasing carbon fiber recycling activity. 

After considering a number of options, Procotex was chosen to continue to supply key customers with no interruption to business. The company is a global sustainable recycled fiber supplier across diverse applications, markets and materials; this acquisition complements its France-based subsidiary Procotex Apply Carbon’s existing carbon fiber business.

Further, following a management buyout, ECF will be renamed to Gen 2 Carbon with a long fiber product portfolio aimed mainly at the composites industry. Customers and suppliers will experience no interruption to current purchase, supply or design projects. Gen 2 Carbon will reportedly build on the capability that has been developed under the stewardship of ELG Haniel and Mitsubishi Corp. (Tokoyo, Japan), which was a 25% shareholder in the business, and seek to develop next-generation carbon fiber recycling technologies and continue to grow the market for carbon fiber and carbon fiber/thermoplastic nonwovens in the composites industry.

“ELG Haniel on its own at first, and latterly working with Mitsubishi Corp., has invested in the development of a world-leading recycled carbon fiber capability,” says Frazer Barnes, Chairman and CTO of Gen 2 Carbon. “We are pleased to be able to continue to build on this, and help our customers in the wind energy, automotive, aerospace and electronics industries reduce their environmental footprints by using these sustainable materials that at the same time reduce the waste impact of the composites industry. We would like to thank ELG Haniel GmbH and Mitsubishi Corp. for their support in developing the business to the point where we have a number of blue chip customers co-designing innovative solutions.”