Research Assistant Professor Ryan Ginder has signed a commercial license agreement with the startup company Karmic Composites, Inc. for his technology on fiberglass recycling from composite materials.
Ginder has spent the past several years working on this technology with aims to recycle as much glass fiber composites as possible from large-scale recycling of wind turbine blades and other glass fiber reinforced plastics and divert them from landfills. The technology will make a lasting, sustainable impact in the composites industry.
Karmic Composites, Inc. will use Ginder’s technology to achieve their goal of providing a composite recycling solution that serves as a low cost, reliable, domestic supply of fiber glass materials to hedge against ongoing instability in today’s global materials supply chain, thereby providing the market with a real circular economy solution for fiberglass composites. Between increasing consumer demands for sustainability and growing regulations around end-product recyclability, being able to market a composite as made from recycled material, or can now even be recycled, is a clear market differentiator in an industry where virtually everything currently goes to landfills.