Pen Aviation, Nandina REM pave the way for rCF in flight in UAV/UAS platforms

Source | Pen Aviation

“The aerospace industry talks a lot about sustainability. But when it comes to actually flying with recycled materials, progress has been glacially slow,” explains Ben Trenchard, head of design, Pen Aviation (Selangor, Malaysia), a company advancing modern mobility through the development and deployment of certified UAS powered by AI software and multi-fuel propulsion engines.

This slow pace is partly understandable. Even as the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) moves toward risk-based approval pathways, the practical reality for novel structural materials hasn’t changed much. Introducing rCF into a type-certified structure still means building an entirely new dataset: mechanical characterization, allowables, fatigue, environmental degradation, repairability. Risk-proportionate frameworks streamline the process — they don’t eliminate the evidence requirement.

But UAVs don’t have to wait, Trenchard argues. “Certification frameworks like SORA, and the Airworthiness Design Standards that accompany them, are risk-proportionate by design,” he explains. “They don’t demand the same depth of evidence, and that creates a genuine engineering opportunity the industry isn’t fully exploiting.”

“Recycled carbon fiber [rCF] already demonstrates comparable stiffness to virgin fiber,” he continues. “The mechanical scatter is higher, the anisotropy harder to control, the supply chain until recently has been fragmented. All real problems, but solvable ones. And the UAV sector can absorb that development risk in a way that a commercial aircraft OEM simply cannot.”

Pen Aviation is exploring these alternative options for its critical material supply chains with a new breed of suppliers that are focusing on production of rCF. 

The argument isn’t just “use rCF because it’s greener.” There’s a second case that doesn’t get made enough: supply chain resilience. Virgin carbon fiber production is heavily concentrated in certain regions. The supply chains that depend on it are exposed to a volatile and increasingly unpredictable geopolitical environment. Materials like rCF changes that picture. Feedstock is recovered domestically from end-of-life (EOL) structures and manufacturing off-cuts. Processing can be regionalized. For defense-adjacent UAV programs especially, that’s not a secondary benefit — it’s a primary one.

“Pen Aviation embeds sustainability in its products from the ground up — it is not an afterthought,” says Trenchard. “When considering a materials strategy, the inclusion of rCF into our design process is high on our list of priorities.”

UAVs and rCF: A collaborative environment

Nandina REM (Singapore) is one company building alternative supply pathways for aerospace-grade composites through advanced materials recovery and its proprietary Rapid Production remanufacturing model. Through its high-performance materials, free of oil-dependent precursors, Nandina REM provides a decoupled, secure supply chain for sectors operating in highly demanding conditions that require lightweighting and longevity in high-temperature, pressurized and corrosive environments. This is particularly relevant as demand grows across emerging applications such as UAVs and defense systems.

In February 2026, Nandina REM launched a high-volume rCF production facility in Singapore, which has the capacity to “produce 5 tonnes (11,000 pounds) of carbon fiber each month to support production of between 120 and 8,000 drones,” according to ainonline.com reports. Other regionalized production facilities are also being planned with its expansion in the U.S. and Australia markets.

With the rCF that it produces, Nandina REM also delivers a range of thermoplastic-based carbon fiber composite materials that are said to offer advantages over thermoset ones in terms of speed, recyclability and toughness. These materials, which come in formats as pellets, filaments, sheets and bulk molding compounds, can be readily used in existing manufacturing processes to serve various applications across the UAV/USV, energy, mining and AI sectors.

At the Singapore Airshow, Nandina REM also launched its Salis operation — a brand focused on making industrial and commercial fabrics from recycled textiles — and formalized a partnership with defense and aerospace partner AV (Arlington, Va., U.S.) to explore a clean, transparent supply chain framework for UAS. 

“The proximity of new material suppliers like Nandina REM to our production facilities in Malaysia creates the potential for a localized, more resilient supply chain, and this is a key part of our materials strategy,” explains Trenchard. “Unlike traditional carbon fiber materials, the implementation of rCF means we can reduce our risk profile through reduced oil dependence and secure localized feedstocks and production of our most critical materials.”

Learn more on linkedIn. Make sure to also visit CW’s Sustainability page, which features a comprehensive list of recyclers and recycling technology suppliers.