Published 07/08/2026

FURHY Publishes Concrete Technological Advances Toward Bio-Based, 100% Recyclable Composites

SNAPSHOT: Gen 2 Carbon, RINA and OlgunCelik A.S. contributed three new key exploitable results (KERs) for the FURHY project covering nonwoven reinforcements, life cycle assessment and automotive components.

Edited by: Grace Stubbins

Senior Managing Editor, CompositesWorld and Products Finishing

Gen 2 Carbon (Coseley, U.K.) leads development of a hybrid nonwoven material combining recycled carbon fiber (rCF) with hemp fiber, currently at TRL 3. The material is intended to lower the carbon footprint of composite reinforcements compared with conventional materials and is being developed with partners CETMA (Brindisi, Italy) and Centexbel (Gent, Belgium). The project identifies automotive as the primary target market, with sports and leisure applications as secondary.

RINA (Genoa, Italy) delivered a life cycle assessment (LCA) of the project’s novel materials, generating primary data intended to support sustainability performance evaluation of bio-based composite technologies. This work is meant to strengthen sustainability consulting capabilities across the biocomposites supply chain.

OlgunCelik A.S. (Manisa, Turkey), working with CETMA, designed two automotive components using recyclable composite materials as an alternative to conventional metallic parts, reaching TRL 5. The project states the components were optimized for weight, cost and environmental impact while targeting improved structural performance, with light commercial and passenger vehicles identified as target applications.

These three results follow an initial set of three KERs introduced in the project’s previous newsletter; the FURHY consortium notes three more will be detailed in its final issue (accessible at its website). FURHY also plans a series of demonstration days at partner pilot sites in the project’s closing phase to showcase the developed technologies under operating conditions, per the newsletter.

Read the full newsletter, including upcoming FURHY events and conference appearances here.

About FURHY

FURHY aims to develop a bio-based, smart and fully recyclable composite material produced through a fast, low-energy, out-of-autoclave (OOA) process. The material combines a novel bio-based epoxy resin formulation filled with expanded graphite with hybrid reinforcement — either hemp and rCF — manufactured via a low-energy version of prepreg compression molding. Aeronautics and automotive are the project's primary target sectors.

Project objectives:

Develop an optimized bio-based, fast-curing, recyclable epoxy resin.
Design a set of new composites with tailored functionality across a range of applications.
Design components for two aeronautic and two automotive applications using the new materials.
Develop hybrid reinforcing fiber textiles.
Develop an energy-saving, high-performance prepreg compression molding process.
Develop a new recycling technology to recover all constituents of the composite structure.
Demonstrate the validity of the project’s business case.

Anticipated impact:

25% lower production cost for renewable lightweight materials compared with currently used materials.
Lightweight products containing more than 50% sustainable, bio-based materials.
Up to 30% lightweighting potential through functionality tailored to extreme environments.
At least a 20% reduction in CO₂ emissions, based on LCA.
New business models and circular value chains for bio-based lightweight components.
Increased industrial autonomy and supply security in key strategic value chains.

The project's work is organized across eight work packages, spanning resin formulation, fiber coating, composites manufacturing, material characterization, component demonstrator design, recyclability and dissemination.