ARKEMA 3, THE FIRST 100% RECYCLABLE BOAT

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What to do with a disused fiberglass boat and how to dispose of the product is a problem which gets more and more serious over the years.

Arkema, a big French chemical factory, has announced the development of a completely recyclable resin with the same strength than the traditional ones. In order to prove the quality of the product, they have built a prototype, a Mini 6.50 boat, called Arkema 3.

The boat was presented in early March at the JEC World 2016, the international exhibition of composite products, as the first boat built in a completely recyclable resin in the world.

The product, called Elium, is a thermoplastic resin which allows construction of composite parts through a combination of glass and carbon fibres.

According to Daniel Lebouvier, technical coordinator of the project at Arkema, it is a material provided with all the mechanical qualities of traditional resins used in boating but with the difference of being recyclable. “This means that at the end of their life, the parts built with this resin can be used again for the production of new elements”.

Arkema 3 is a 6.50-foot-Mini  designed by the marine architect Romaric Neyhousse for the skipper Quentin Vlamynck, who took part to Mini Transat last year.

For this new boat, the aim of both the architect and the skipper, was to integrate the most of Arkema technology to built a recyclable very light but strong boat.

For the structural assembly they used special Bostik glues and all portholes have been made of Altuglas ShieldUp, a material sharing the same transparency with glass but with a greater lightness and strength.