Abstract:
Carbon fiber-reinforced epoxy resin composites (CF/EP) exhibit excellent mechanical properties and structural stability; however, the irreversible crosslinked networks of conventional thermosetting epoxy resins make their efficient recycling challenging. To enable the sustainable utilization of high-performance composites, a room-temperature recyclable carbon fiber/epoxy composite was developed based on dynamic boronate ester (B-O-C) bonds. A hydroxyl-rich linear prepolymer (EA) was first synthesized through an aniline-induced ring-opening chain-extension reaction of bisphenol A diglycidyl ether (E51). Subsequently, a dynamic crosslinked EAT network was constructed via the reaction between tripropyl borate (TPB) and hydroxyl groups, followed by the fabrication of CF/EAT composites. The results demonstrated that the incorporation of dynamic boronate ester structures contributed to enhanced mechanical performance of the composites. Among the investigated composites, CF/EAT30 exhibited excellent overall mechanical properties, with a flexural strength of 836.1 ± 5.9 MPa. Moreover, the composite could undergo rapid resin depolymerization and relatively complete carbon fiber separation in methanol at room temperature. The recovered components could be readily reprocessed to fabricate regenerated composites with good mechanical performance. This study provides a mild and efficient strategy for the closed-loop recycling of high-performance carbon fiber/epoxy composites.