About Lineat
We close the loop for carbon fibre with our Aligned Formable Fibre Technology (AFFT™), Our uni-directional AFFT™ tapes are easy to use and can be used as substitute for existing uni-direction tapes. They offer superior formability to simplify composite manufacturing with less defects and at higher production rates. And, with a much lower carbon footprint than that of virgin fibres.
Further technological advancements on the world renowned HiPerDiF system have allowed Lineat to supply highly aligned uni-directional discontinuous fibre tapes, manufactured from both virgin and fully reclaimed carbon fibre. They retain >75% of strength and >85% stiffness of continuous virgin carbon fibre tapes and offers a multitude of applications across all industry sectors.
Lineat is pioneering an automated fibre alignment process with continuous dispersion control, having designed a closed loop water circulation system, minimising the need to replace water and improving the overall LCA of our materials.
History
Lineat grew out of academic foundations at the Bristol Composites Institute at the University of Bristol. It was co-founded in November 2020 by our CTO, Dr. Lourens Blok, together with fellow academics who remained in academia.
Funded by a SETsquared ICURe entrepreneur grant, Lourens spent three months in lockdown identifying composite market needs and challenges. He found the reality of lightweight carbon fibre composites is that they have a heavy cost and manufacturing burden; it is expensive, hard to manufacture and most of it ends up in landfill. Three problems that highly aligned fibre materials can solve. He worked together with Luis Cunha, our Director of Engineering, and they conceptualised, designed and built a lab size prototype alignment machine for the University of Bristol at the National Composites Centre. From this work, Lourens decided to set-up Lineat Composites Limited to commercialise the academic work. Lineat’s CEO, Gary Owen, joined in early 2021 and the team successfully submitted and won an IUK grant to help kickstarting Lineat into industrialisation.
Fast forward to 2022, and Lineat now consists of a team of 10 professionals assembling the world’s first commercial prototype discontinuous tape machine called AFFT1.0, with quality assured tape being delivered the market early 2023.
who we work with
Technology
Our Aligned Formable Fibre Technology (AFFTTM) produces highly aligned discontinuous fibre tapes that exhibit mechanical performance comparable to continuous fibre composites. They have a greatly improved formability as the fibre can move relative to each other, with extensional strains up to 20% to replace slow manual lay-up procedures with single-step forming operations.
The AFFT process can also be used to give reclaimed carbon fibres a second life. The tapes can be used as a direct substitute for continuous fibre UD tapes in existing supply chains for various markets including sports, marine, automotive, and aerospace.