Sustainability has become the industry’s favorite talking point, with manufacturers across the value chain quick to claim carbon savings, sometimes without the data to prove it. At Formnext this year, Procotex offers a counterpoint grounded in industrial scale and verifiable metrics. The Belgium- and France-based recycler has developed a platform for short carbon fibers that matches the performance of virgin fibers, comes at a lower cost, and offers an order-of-magnitude advantage in CO₂ footprint.
Bruno Douchy, Sales Director at the sustainable fibre supplier, explained how recycled carbon can deliver both environmental and functional value.
Industrialised Sustainability, From Textiles to Technical Fibres
Procotex has evolved from textile recycling to the industrial reuse of high-performance materials, such as carbon and para-aramid. The company’s French subsidiary, Procotex France formerly Apply Carbon, focuses entirely on reclaiming dry carbon waste from major producers.
“We don’t produce virgin carbon; it’s always recycled,” said Douchy. The waste typically arrives as offcuts, filaments, or weaving remnants, which are then milled or treated depending on the application.
One key stage is the controlled removal or adjustment of epoxy sizing, the surface treatment that ensures adhesion between fibre and polymer. Some clients require all sizing to be removed by heating in an oxygen-free furnace (pyrolyzing), while others prefer the original finish or request that Procotex apply a new coating for improved compatibility with specific matrices, such as polyamide, polycarbonate, or polypropylene. The recycled material is supplied in multiple forms, from powder to pelletised feedstock.
To clarify, in Procotex’s process, the term “pellet or birdseed” refers to agglomerated fibre clusters rather than the thermoplastic pellets common in polymer extrusion 3D printing.
Unlike small recyclers, Procotex handles the full range in-house and maintains significant buffer stock to guarantee supply. “In recycling, if you deliver to big industries you need to supply always,” Douchy said. “You cannot ask your supplier to make some waste for us. The waste is there, or it’s not there.” This approach, combined with blending waste from multiple sources, enables the company to maintain consistent quality and meet industrial-scale demand.
Additive Opportunity, Competing with Virgin Carbon
Procotex’s roots lie in Belgium’s flax and polypropylene fibre industries, where it supplied non-woven material for automotive interiors. The move into technical fibres began by applying its carbon-processing know-how to para-aramid – a high-strength, high-resistance synthetic fibre perhaps most widely known as Kevlar. Procotex now produces granules suitable for compounding or additive manufacturing.
The company’s focus on automation and blending underpins a steady output, one impressive claim is cost-competitiveness with virgin fibre. “Our strength is in the industrialisation,” Douchy said. “We invest in state-of-the-art machinery and optimise everything so we don’t have too much labour. We make it a lot cheaper than virgin.”
An independent Lifecycle Assessment found that Apply Carbon’s recycled fibres cut greenhouse-gas emissions by about 85% compared with virgin production. Recycled carbon and aramid fibres each carry an embedded footprint of 2.0 kg CO₂-equivalent per kg, versus 12.6 kg for virgin carbon and 13.2 kg for aramid. The saving stems mainly from avoiding the energy-intensive synthesis of new fibres. Substitution studies showed further reductions: polypropylene or polyamide compounds reinforced with recycled carbon can lower embedded emissions to around 2–7 kg CO₂/kg, while maintaining mechanical performance.
While the company’s current feedstock is post-industrial waste, it is technically capable of recycling post-consumer composites such as aircraft or hydrogen-tank components. The challenge is economic. “You have to burn off 50 percent of epoxy resin,” Douchy said. “It’s technically possible, but the price is higher.” The firm is advocating for regulations requiring manufacturers to include a minimum recycled content in new products, which it believes would make large-scale post-consumer recycling viable. “Politicians should help us to oblige the industry to use, for example, five to ten per cent of recycled content in new products,” he said. “That would open and help to recycle a lot of this waste.”
He expects regulation to tighten first in the automotive sector, where new rules require vehicles to reach about 80-85% recyclability by weight. Carbon fibre use in cars is still limited by cost, but similar mandates for textiles are emerging.
Procotex began supplying the additive manufacturing market about a decade ago, initially for filaments based on low-temperature polymers such as PLA and polypropylene. As users demanded lighter and stronger parts, carbon fibre reinforcement became more attractive, and Procotex offered a recycled alternative to virgin feedstock. “It’s cheaper than virgin and we can react quickly to the market,” Douchy said, adding that the firm’s smaller size allows faster sampling than major producers.
Recycled fibres for 3D printing are supplied mainly as milled granules, a short fibre format that can pass easily through print heads and be accurately dosed during compounding. Some customers also buy chopped strands, but most prefer the controlled dosing and flow properties of the milled grade. Douchy said the performance difference between recycled and virgin material is negligible. The economic advantage is more pronounced. Recycled fibre can be 30 to 50% cheaper than virgin equivalents because Procotex only processes existing waste, avoiding the energy-intensive production of new carbon fibre. “The big players are not so reactive and they prefer long-fibre programmes,” Douchy said. “We are much cheaper.”
He sees the additive manufacturing sector entering a phase of faster growth after years of gradual qualification work, though volumes will remain far below those in the wider compounding market that serves electronics and automotive parts.
Beyond Carbon: Para-Aramid and Conductive Markets
Procotex is expanding its recycled fibre portfolio to include applications that require heat resistance, friction performance, and electrical properties. Carbon fibre does not burn, while para-aramid retains strength at elevated temperatures and is used where wear and tribology are critical. Douchy cited applications such as e-chains, where repeated flex cycles demand abrasion resistance as just one use case.
The company is active in projects aimed at post-consumer recycling and is exploring consolidation. “We are always developing new products,” said Douchy. “We are in subsidised projects for post-consumer, and we are in negotiation with another competitor to grow,” he added, noting that market activity this year has been slower than the previous three.
Beyond carbon and para-aramid, the group can process other functional fibers where sizing and chop length are tuned for compatibility; however, glass fiber recycling is unattractive economically. Demand signals include EMI shielding and static-dissipative parts for handling electronics, while drone manufacturers are seeking lightweight, stiff components compatible with short-fibre compounding and higher deposition rates available with pellet-based printers.
Douchy’s message is to prioritise recycled options where printing process constraints permit. “Use recycled first for sustainability and cost,” he said. “The quality and performance are the same as virgin in the right streams.” Procotex France has also a RCC (Recycled content certificate) from SGS.
Formnext visitors can meet Procotex at booth F39 Hall 12.1.
On Thursday, 20 November 2025 at 11:15 a.m. Procototex will give a talk “Recycled technical fibers and sustainability in AM” on the technology stage of Formnext Hall 12.1-B49.
Featured image shows the Procotex France Facility. Photo via Procotex.
