Fairmat to recycle 30% of industry’s carbon fiber waste in Europe one year after inception

Fairmat (Paris, France), a deep-tech company committed to the recycling of carbon fiber composites, announced on July 11 that it will be recycling more than 30% of Europe's carbon fiber composite production waste since its inception more than a year ago. This originates mainly from the aeronautics and wind energy markets. Fairmat has also created numerous partnerships with emblematic customers who are attracted by its solution.

Partnerships including Hexcel (Stamford, Conn., U.S.) for the recycling of carbon fiber prepregs produced by the company in Europe, and Siemens Gamesa (Zamudio, Spain), which has selected Fairmat for an R&D study on the recycling of carbon fibers in wind blades at its Danish site in Aalborg. Following the results, Fairmat and Siemens will evaluate the implementation of ongoing collaboration on the recycling of carbon fiber production waste from Siemen Gamesa’s manufacturing processes.

All the production waste resulting from these partnerships and many other French and European players will be sent to the Fairmat Fairfactory, a production site located in Bouguenais, where they will be analyzed for their compatibility with the Fairmat industrial process, aimed at giving them a second life in markets such as automobiles, mobility, sport or consumer electronics.

In addition, the company has also extended its recycling process to end-of-life (EOL) composite parts with the help of France-based Tarmac Aerosave. As part of this partnership, some EOL aircraft parts containing carbon fiber composites, treated by Tarmac Aerosave, will be recovered by Fairmat. If successful, a commercial agreement for the industrial processing of all composite carbon fiber parts will be signed with Tarmac Aerosave.

Driven by this dynamic, Fairmat says it is expanding, and the company has accelerated its recruitment strategy, increasing its workforce by five-fold in one year. The company has also recruited several people dedicated to the Spanish market, and will expand to Northern Europe and Germany in the near future. Around twenty additional people will be sought by the beginning of 2023, mainly in the positions of engineers, roboticians, sales staff and project managers. Positions are also becoming available at the production site.

“Thanks to our recycling technology, we are supporting a major movement initiated by our customers, who are looking for alternatives to the landfills or incineration of carbon [fiber] composites,” Benjamin Saada, CEO and founder of Fairmat, says. “We are experiencing rapid progress within the European territory, from Finland to Spain. And the next step will be to enable our customers to access our solution worldwide.”