Hera Group accelerates toward the circular economy of the future and inaugurates in Imola (BO), in the heart of Motor Valley, the first plant of its kind in Europe, capable of regenerating carbon fiber on an industrial scale. It is called FIB3R, a name under the banner of the three R’s at the heart of the project: recover, reduce, reuse, meaning to recover carbon fiber and reuse it, reducing the use of virgin fiber and thus the environmental impact that would be required to produce it.
With an important competitive advantage: the fiber regenerated by FIB3R maintains unaltered the lightness and high strength characteristics of virgin fiber, guaranteeing to obtain-through a state-of-the-art pyrogasification process-a regenerated output product, ready to be reused, rewoven and/or impregnated, for high-performance uses for which this type of material is intended. There are an increasing number of industries interested in this excellence, ranging from automotive to aerospace, from marine to furniture, to textiles and fashion in the broadest sense, just to name a few.
The commitment to fostering the ecological transition and the forecast increase in demand for carbon fiber have led the Hera Group to anticipate this megatrend, launching the challenge of applying also to this material, on an industrial scale, the virtuous path of the circular economy that has already been the basis of its strategy for years, combining economic growth with environmental sustainability. A path that stands at the center of the Italian Circular Valley, because it is precisely in this area that material recovery initiatives have been developed with circular solutions for over forty years.
That the path is the right one is also confirmed by the interest of the European Union, which has awarded FIB3R a contribution of more than 2.2 million euros as part of the NextGenerationEU for its innovative technology and the strategic relevance of the materials treated. The total investment planned by Hera Group to build the Imola plant amounts to 8 million euros.
To date, the plant is expected to produce 160 tons of recycled carbon fiber each year, with energy savings of 75 percent compared to virgin fiber.