Recycling of waste wind turbine blades for high‐performance polypropylene composites

Abstract

Glass fiber‐reinforced epoxy resin composite materials are widely used in various fields because of their excellent properties, especially in the stringent performance requirements of wind turbine blades manufacture for wind power generation. However, the irreversible cross‐linking network of the epoxy resin makes it difficult to recycle. In recent years, the management of large amounts of decommissioned wind turbine blade waste has become spotlight. This study used self‐developed solid‐state shear milling technology to effectively remove the epoxy resin from the glass fiber surface while preserving its high aspect ratio, ensuring its mechanical reinforcement potential. Furthermore, this process also significantly reduced epoxy resin particle size. Subsequently, composites with filler contents up to 50 wt.% were formulated with polypropylene. In the optimized composition, the material exhibited a remarkable 37.1% increase in tensile strength, 147.3% increase in modulus, and 63.8% increase in flexural strength, 165.5% in modulus, respectively. In this research, we conducted a comprehensive exploration into the effects of modifier structure and powder content on different properties of composites, contributing to a deeper understanding of these key factors.

Optimizing the Recycling Process of PP Plastics from Waste Washing Machines: Sustainable Strategy for Environmentally Friendly Reutilization

“…Functionalization treatment of recycled PP through blending modification can achieve strength and toughness beyond those of virgin PP . Specifically, modified PP was successfully prepared by mixing recycled PP, virgin PP, toughening agent, and glass fiber in an appropriate proportion and extruding them into particles under filtration conditions of 220 °C. − The specific formula is given in Table . The experimental results show that the toughness and mild degree of recycled PP are significantly improved by adding elastomers and glass fibers.…”

Preparation of Polyoxymethylene/Exfoliated Molybdenum Disulfide Nanocomposite through Solid-State Shear Milling

“…Solid-state shear milling (S 3 M), a technology based on our self-designed pan-milling equipment [15], has been well developed in our laboratory for many years. This technology has been successfully adopted to achieve the preparation of highly filled polymer composites [16], ultrafine grinding of polymer/inorganic micro-nano composites [17,18], and recycling of wasted polymers [19,20]. The oppositely inlaid twin mill-pans of the above-mentioned pan-milling equipment can act as three-dimensional scissors during panmilling, which could exert very strong compression, shear, and hoop stretching stresses for pulverization, dispersion, mixing, and mechanochemical activation on the milled materials.…”