In the last years, carbon ceramic brakes are preferred to traditional cast iron ones for their lightweight, high temperature resistance, and long service life, even though their manufacturing involves the use of high temperature processes and energy-intensive materials such as carbon fibers. Within the European Life Project “CIRCE”, a novel recovery system for carbon fiber prepreg scraps was developed to reclaim high-quality carbon fibers to use as a substitute of virgin carbon fibers in different application, such as in Ceramic Matrix Composite (CMC) brakes. In order to overcome the lack of scientific literature regarding the environmental sustainability of steel and CMC brakes, in the present paper, the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology was applied to carry out a detailed analysis of the environmental impacts associated with carbon ceramic brakes realized using the reclaimed prepreg scraps. The functional unit was defined as production, use and disposal of a rear brake disc used for the deceleration of a sport car during its lifetime. Different impact indicators were considered, such as Global Warming Potential, Cumulative Energy Deman and ReCiPe midpoint categories. The results were compared to those given by the sustainability assessment of cast iron disc brakes and traditional carbon ceramic brakes. The proposed LCA is a cradle to grave analysis, as it considers all the relevant inputs and outputs of the manufacturing processes, from the raw material extraction to the materials disposal. The surface of ceramic brakes was observed using Scanning Electron Microscopy to assess the different material structures. The results show that, as far as the production is concerned, cast iron brakes are the most sustainable alternative, with impacts lower than 21% of the composite component ones. However, if a long use phase more than 200,000 km is evaluated, carbon ceramic brakes obtained by reclaimed prepreg scraps are characterized by lower environmental impacts, with impacts that are about 8% lower than those obtained by traditional carbon ceramic brakes.

近年来，碳陶瓷制动器因其重量轻、耐高温和使用寿命长而受到传统铸铁制动器的青睐，尽管它们的制造涉及使用高温工艺和碳纤维等能源密集型材料。在欧洲生命项目“CIRCE”中，开发了一种用于碳纤维预浸料废料的新型回收系统，以回收优质碳纤维作为原始碳纤维的替代品，用于不同应用，例如陶瓷基复合材料 (CMC) 制动器. 为了克服关于钢制和 CMC 制动器的环境可持续性的科学文献的缺乏，在本文中，应用生命周期评估 (LCA) 方法对与使用回收的预浸料废料实现的碳陶瓷制动器相关的环境影响进行了详细分析。功能单元被定义为生产、使用和处置后制动盘，用于在其生命周期内为跑车减速。考虑了不同的影响指标，例如全球变暖潜能值、累积能量需求和 ReCiPe 中点类别。将结果与铸铁盘式制动器和传统碳陶瓷制动器的可持续性评估给出的结果进行了比较。拟议的 LCA 是从摇篮到坟墓的分析，因为它考虑了从原材料提取到材料处置的制造过程的所有相关输入和输出。使用扫描电子显微镜观察陶瓷制动器的表面，以评估不同的材料结构。结果表明，就生产而言，铸铁制动器是最可持续的替代品，其影响低于复合材料制动器的 21%。但是，如果对超过20万公里的长期使用阶段进行评估，使用回收预浸料废料制成的碳陶瓷制动器具有较低的环境影响，比传统碳陶瓷制动器产生的影响低约8%。