Verretex Project Approved by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN)

Advancing Circular and Low-Carbon Composite Materials with Bio-Based Resins

Verretex is pleased to announce that its research and development project, “Traitement de rouleaux non-tissés en fibres de verre recyclée pour utilisation avec des résines biosourcées”, has been officially approved and supported by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN / OFEV) under its Environmental Technology Promotion program.

The project is publicly registered in the ARAMIS federal research database (Project No. UTF 767.17.25), Switzerland’s official system for tracking federally supported research and innovation initiatives.

Enabling High-Value Reuse of Recycled Glass Fibres

The composite materials industry generates millions of tonnes of glass fibre waste each year, notably from wind turbine blades, marine applications, and industrial scrap. Current recycling approaches often downcycle fibres into low-value fillers or direct them to energy recovery (“remelt”), resulting in significant losses of mechanical performance and material value. In most industrial applications today, recycled glass fibres are reintegrated at very low levels—typically below 5%.

Building on its patented process developed in collaboration with EPFL-LPAC, Verretex has demonstrated the ability to clean, restore, apply tailored sizing, and manufacture non-woven rolls composed of up to 100% recycled glass fibres, achieving mechanical performance close to that of virgin fibre materials.

Focus on Compatibility with Bio-Based Resins

As industry demand for bio-sourced resins continues to grow, ensuring compatibility between recycled fibres and these matrices has become a critical challenge. Bio-based resins require specific surface treatments (sizing) to guarantee proper fibre-matrix adhesion and reliable mechanical performance.

The FOEN-supported project addresses this challenge directly by:

• Selecting and characterizing multiple bio-based resin systems suitable for industrial composite manufacturing
• Developing and validating adapted sizing formulations compatible with different bio-based matrices
• Producing pilot non-woven rolls using recycled glass fibres on an industrial pilot line
• Manufacturing composite plates and conducting standardized mechanical testing (flexural and tensile)
• Benchmarking results against equivalent composites made with virgin glass fibres and the same resins

The project is designed to ensure drop-in compatibility with existing industrial composite processes, enabling rapid adoption without major changes to production infrastructure.

Collaborative Research Across Leading Institutions

The project is carried out in close collaboration with EPFL-LPAC, EPFL-LAPAC, the CIME platform, and Fraunhofer IGCV in Germany, combining academic excellence with applied industrial research. Verretex leads the project execution, with laboratory-scale and pilot-scale demonstrators serving as concrete proof points for future industrial deployment.

Supporting Switzerland’s Circular Economy Objectives

By enabling the high-value reuse of recycled glass fibres in combination with bio-based resins, the project contributes directly to:

• Waste reduction and improved resource efficiency
• Lower-carbon composite materials
• Strengthening Switzerland’s leadership in circular and sustainable industrial technologies

Verretex thanks FOEN for its support and the project partners for their collaboration in advancing practical, scalable solutions for the circular composites economy.

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