Toray Industries and Toyota Tsusho Corporation has announced to launch a joint carbon fiber recycling initiative to develop highly efficient recycled carbon fiber manufacturing technology using an innovative and energy-efficient thermal decomposition method. The companies' joint proposal for this technology has been selected by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) as part of its FY2015 "Strategic Innovation Program for Energy Conservation Technologies."

The companies plan to build a pilot plant within the Handa Plant operated by Toyota Tsusho's wholly owned subsidiary Toyota Chemical Engineering. With an eye towards future commercialization, the facility will validate demonstrate energy-efficient recycled carbon fiber manufacturing technologies while promoting the development of new applications for recycled carbon fiber.

Toray and Toyota Tsusho's proposal for highly efficient recycled carbon fiber manufacturing relies on an innovative and energy-efficient thermal decomposition method. In this method, combustible decomposition gas from matrix resin is used as the energy source for the thermal decomposition process, which typically consumes the most energy in carbon fiber recycling. As a result, the companies expect to achieve a large reduction in the amount of energy consumed in the recycling process.

Toray has taken initiatives to develop carbon fiber recycling technologies as a member of the Consortium for Carbon Fiber Recycling Technology Development (dissolved at the end of March 2015). In the 1970s, the Toyota Tsusho Group launched a business to recover and recycle scrap iron, nonferrous metals and other resources from end-of-life vehicles. Today, the Toyota Tsusho Group operates recycling businesses in countries around the world.