As an experiment, I burn a few cm of skin from an old board. Satisfyingly, it left the fiberglass in perfect condition. Only the epoxy was gone.
Presumably though, this must release some very toxic fumes to poison anyone and anything. Not recommended!
But is there a way to utilise this in a less damaging way?
What about heating the resin to a lower temperature and letting it drip down from the fibre?
Okay, a few things-
First, the fiberglass wasn’t in perfect condition , Between residues from the burnt resin that were left and the surface treatments on the fibers and the cloth that were lost, it’s not by any means perfect nor reusable.
Next- look, plastics can be divided a lot of ways into a lot of categories. And for this purpose, there are thermoplastics and thermosetting plastics.
What are they? Well, both will burn, one telltale of which a particular plastic is is that thermosets burn with a sooty flame.
Now, thermoplastics are often used with molding processes. They are shipped as pellets or similar, the pellets are melted with heat and pressure and molded into shapes. Exaples include the various polyethylenes which are Injection molded, roto-molded, what have you. Many thermoplastics can be melted down, made into pellets and reused/recycled. The structure of the molecules isn’t changed.
On the other hand you have the thermosetting plastics. The way those are shipped is in two or more parts which are then combined before use, new molecules are made and used a number of ways. Polyester and epoxy resins, are two examples particularly on point here, as are polystyrene and polyurethane foams. You can break them down and reuse them to a certain extent, but it takes relatively complex methods like treatment with acids or other strong solvents and what results is a nasty glop that has to be completely reprocessed. Oh, and they don’t just melt down and drip off.
Thermosets, well, typically they are not recycled. They are either buried in landfills ( bad, it takes a real long time to break them down) or burned. Preferably burned in controlled conditions, like power generation, where really high temperatures are used ( fluidised bed furnaces, for instance) to really break them down and produce no more than water vapor and CO2. Backyard bonfires, the combustion is often incomplete nad what comes off your fire is nasty.
Look, surfing may give you a warm fuzzy feeling. And I’m glad it does. But between boards, travelling to the water, wetsuits, wax and more, it’s not the kindest thing for the planet.
Something to think about
doc…
Thanks doc. I guess it’s that 2 part reaction that’s the irreversible bit.
So the thermoset isn’t completely set but also not enough to separate from the fiber.
Sorry to hear it. This problem must be with the ‘eco’ resins too.
Sad.
Heard something about burning other plastics at very high temp to eliminate Pollutants as well. Something about ‘plasma’. At least that’s something to think about…
Ahhm - lets see if I can clear up a thing or two.
When you do the reaction to resin to get it to harden you really can’t undo it. It’s completely set. If you impregnate fiberglass cloth with that resin, it stays there. If you burn that impregnated cloth, the hardened resin is what burns and most of it goes away as soot and gases but a little will remain on the cloth fibers.
Now, eco resins are whatever you want to call them. The sources of the hydrocarbon components you use to make said resins are probably the eco part, rather than crude oil you might use vegetable oil, it’s more public relations than chemical engineering. And disposing of them when you’re done with them is no different.
Burning at high temps, yeah, well, you are still burning them. In burning you react something with oxygen and you get oxides in gas form plus particles, ash. If it’s a hydrocarbon like resin that’s CO2, water vapor, carbon monoxide, soot (carbon particles) and a few others, depending on what else is in the resin. If it’s done at high enough temps with plenty of oxygen and scrubbers for the odd stuff then you are putting out mostly CO2, which is still a greenhouse gas.
Plasma… is a physical state, a very hot gas. Nothing particularly magical about it. If you have something that hot and there’s enough oxygen present then you get complete combustion, CO2 and H2O rather than CO2, CO (carbon monoxide), H2O and C (carbon soot).
hope that’s of use
doc…
Not a. Good idea if you car about our environment even a little.
The only resin you should be burning is cannabis resin
10–4 Tom. Up in Smoke.
And that raises a question-
There are hundreds of thousands, more like millions, of surfboards out there. And then there’s assorted and sundry other composite things like boats and car parts and so on.
Sooner or later, something has to be done with them, when they wear out or get used up -
What?
Recycling really isn’t an option.
doc…