How airplane parts fit into laptops

Carbon fiber is one of the most popular materials in aircraft manufacturing today. Modern widebody aircraft, such as the Airbus A350XWB and Boeing 787 Dreamliner, take advantage of the myriad benefits this unique material provides.

Carbon composites are significantly lighter than the aluminum traditionally used to make aircraft fuselages and other parts. These new composite materials are just as strong, if not stronger, and allow these jets to be significantly more fuel efficient.

Photo: Minh K. Tran | Shutterstock

But the aviation industry doesn’t specifically want carbon fiber composites, and the material is valuable for a variety of applications. A recent article in TechRadar demonstrated the unique interconnectivity between the computer industry and Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

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Side panels and laptops: How Boeing uses recycled carbon fiber

If you have a recently purchased Lenovo laptop, this article may be about the device you are currently reading. In fact, Lenovo’s latest laptops utilize recycled carbon fiber from former commercial aircraft.

But how exactly does this work? Why did some of the latest aircraft materials end up rolling from the graveyard into your laptop? In this article, we’ll explore how computers can also be used as flat tags. Let me explain briefly how it works.

Boeing and Lenovo partnership

When an aircraft reaches the end of its useful life, airlines are left with several options as to what they can do with the aircraft. While many companies will choose to sell or lease their aircraft to other airlines, some retired jets will simply be scrapped.

Once an aircraft goes through this process, its parts end up in various places, and the aircraft parts and materials are usually auctioned off and sold to the highest bidder. When it comes to many older Boeing jets, Lenovo’s newest laptop, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 12, uses a small amount of carbon fiber.

Lenovo’s new laptop chassis has been completely redesigned to be much more robust and lighter. After all, the laptop industry, like aviation, is moving toward lighter, stronger materials like carbon fiber.

But carbon composite materials are difficult to obtain, so Lenovo had to get creative to find suppliers at an affordable price. As a result, Lenovo found the perfect partner in Boeing. Boeing has continually supplied computer hardware companies with used aircraft materials to meet their various product needs.

A victory for sustainability

Sustainability will remain a key focus for the aviation industry into the next decade, and regulators will continue to aim to reduce the industry’s carbon footprint. By recycling carbon fiber, the industry can ensure that these materials, which have gone through carbon-intensive manufacturing processes, are not wasted, allowing the aviation industry to reduce its environmental impact in the long term.