FOREST is a consortium that will develop innovative bio-based polymers & additives and recycled carbon fibres that will facilitate the decarbonisation of the transport sector for the next three and half years, supported by the EU with €4.3 million in funding.

The FOREST project started in December 2022 and will last until May 2026. The consortium aims to provide new and innovative green composites for sustainable and safety transport applications. The aim is fully aligned with EU 2030 Climate and Energy challenges.

The goal will be achieved by combining three key drivers: Reduce, Recovery, and Reshape.

Reduce

FOREST will reduce the structural weight of the vehicles by providing light components made of carbon fibre-reinforced plastic. In this way, less fuel and energy consumption will be necessary to cover the same distance.

FOREST will develop new chemistries based on high-biobased content for polymers and additives. In this regard, the fossil sources' dependency will be reduced.

Recovery

FOREST will implement efficient methods to recover 100% of CF waste to develop high-quality semi-finished materials) for valuable transport applications.

Reshape

FOREST will research the influence of the multifunctional properties on the biocomposite. Therefore, FOREST will combine the biobased, recycled, and multifunctionality material nature to obtain sustainable solutions for the bus, aeronautic, and automotive sectors

FOREST will develop novel lightweight multifunctional biocomposites as a competitive alternative to conventional composites.

New chemistries will be developed based on bio-based materials (reactive and nonreactive polymeric systems and fire-retardant additives) in combination with fully recycled carbon fibre and EMI particles.

These biocomposite candidates will be obtained using one-shot manufacturing techniques, involving Out-of-Autoclave (OoA) processes to build and test prototypes (TRL5) with improved multifunctional properties (mechanical resistance, fire-retardant, EMI-shielding) for transport application.

FOREST will increase the focus area on the sustainability in Circular Economy (CE) by effective circularity solutions applied to multifunctional biocomposite constituents with >50% sustainable materials contained in lightweight products.