Composite Finishing for Reuse

Coating processes are emerging for new applications related to remanufactured products from End-of-Life materials. In this perspective, their employment can generate interesting scenarios for the design of products and solutions in circular economy frameworks, especially for composite materials. This chapter would give an overview of coating design and application for recycled glass fiber reinforced polymers on the base of the experimentation made within the FiberEUse project. New cosmetic and functional coatings were developed and tested on different polymer composite substrates filled with mechanically recycled End-of-Life glass fibers. Afterwards, recycled glass fiber reinforced polymer samples from water-solvable 3D printed molds were successfully coated. Finally, new industrial applications for the developed coatings and general guidelines for the coating of recycled glass fiber reinforced polymers were proposed by using the FiberEUse Demo Cases as a theoretical proof-of-concept.