Samsung Ventures funds Connora Technologies to enable recyclable composites

Connora Technologies, Inc. (Hayward, CA, US) has announced an investment from Samsung Venture Investment Corporation (“Samsung Ventures”), the Venture Capital arm of the Samsung Group (Seoul, Korea), to advance commercialization of their recyclable epoxy thermoset technology called RECYCLAMINE. Two new members also join Connora’s advisory board: Andre Genton, former President of Huntsman Advanced Materials (Basel, Switzerland), and Brendan Iribe, a successful entrepreneur known recently for the acquisition of Oculus by Facebook.

Connora’s RECYCLAMINE technology is a green chemistry platform that provides an efficient method for making and recycling composite waste materials and products. Efficiently recycling composite materials should have a positive impact in the automotive and aerospace industries, where the trend to make lighter, stronger, and more energy efficient vehicles is driving growth in the use of carbon fiber composite materials. In these and other applications, carbon fiber parts are often made in high volumes, with sometimes 20-40% of the raw materials going to waste. Since traditional thermoset plastics are not optimized for recyclability, current composite waste is intractable and often disposed of in landfill or by burning.

This investment shows that the technology will have an economic value for manufacturers just as compelling as the obvious environmental benefits. “Reclaiming the expensive carbon fiber [from manufacturing waste] in a near virgin state, and enabling OEMs to put it back into their products will help lower their costs over time.” stated Dr. Rey Banatao, Connora’s CEO.

European auto manufacturers are already facing increased regulations to make cars from more recyclable materials. The European Union Directive for End of Life Vehicles (ELV) is enforcing limits which composite materials will have to address if they are to have a mainstream role in automotive industry. Under the current provisions of the ELV Directive targeted for 2015, the proportions of ELV material required for re-use and recycling are 85% by weight, while that for re-use and recovery is 95%. The 10% difference being the amount allowed for incineration and energy recovery.

Connora’s RECYCLAMINE Technology enables carbon fiber composites to more readily qualify as a recyclable material. Connora is currently in discussions with several auto and aerospace OEMs to develop a specific RECYCLAMINE Epoxy Resin system for use in high-pressure resin transfer molding processes (HP-RTM), suitable to the high-volume manufacturing methods being adopted by auto and aerospace manufacturers today. Epoxy resins are currently the predominant thermoset plastic used in performance carbon fiber composites.

RECYCLAMINE was recognized with a JEC Innovation Award in 2012. Connora is not only the global supplier for RECYCLAMINE degradable polyamines for use in recyclable thermoset composite and coating formulations, it also offers molecular design expertise to the composites industry based on its extensive and ongoing research into the balance between performance, cost, manufacturability, and programmed degradability for thermoset polymer systems.