UltraFibre

Development of a Radial Cell Process for the Clean, Continuous, High Volume Production by Hydro-Acoustic Decortication of High Quality Natural Fibres for the SME Natural Fibre Sector

There is an urgent need in Europe for more sympathetic integration of food and non-food production; this can be partially achieved through improved process efficiency and productivity.

Natural fibre crops cannot be easily separated into fibres of consistent quality. Therefore, to commercially exploit past research investment in the development of natural fibre reinforced polymers, new research must be undertaken to reduce processing costs and to improve fibre quality, consistency, and efficiency. The UltraFibre project will address these restrictions in the supply chain by delivering:

• A scalable, economic, continuous, clean- fluidsonics technology to deliver tonnage quantities of high quality fibre, conferring:
  • Reduced production costs.
  • High quality elementary natural fibres.
  • Higher quality commercial thermoplastic and thermosetting composites in targeted end-user applications.
  • Integration of a Soft Plasma fibre treatment process with the aim of conferring an increase in mechanical properties compared with the untreated fibre.

  Organisational Information

  Budget: €2.2M
  Funding: €1.7M
  Start Date: January 2010
  Finish Date: December 2012
  Duration (in months): 36
  Lead Partner (Co-ordinator): ASSOCOMAPLAST, Italy

  Participants

  Results – What happened next?

  At the time of writing, UltraFibre is still in its first 12 months so it is too early to report on any results. Practical work has only just commenced and ultrasonic trials on flax fibres have begun.

  Project website: www.ultrafibre.org

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