Recycling of wind turbine blades: Recent developments

Leon, Mishnaevsky Jr.

doi:10.1016/j.cogsc.2022.100746

Cited by 23 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…A robust analysis of the state-of-the-art end of life strategies for wind turbine blades within the last 5 years is available in previous literature [37][38][39][40][41]. For this work, we are summarizing the key processes below for purposes of the analysis performed.…”

Section: Current Industrialized End Of Life Strategies In the Us For ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of wind turbine blade recycling baselines in the United States

Korey,

Sproul,

Rencheck

et al. 2023

IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng.

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Over the past several years, the wind energy industry has received scrutiny regarding wind turbine blade (WTB) recycling due to the landfilling of WTBs caused by a lack of industrially viable recycling solutions. The amount of WTBs that will need to be recycled is set to increase in the United States as the deployment of wind energy is expected to rapidly grow to meet the nation’s energy goals by 2035. While significant progress has been made worldwide, it is still unclear which WTB recycling solutions would be the most cost and energy effective within the United States for the existing fleet of wind turbines. To guide researchers and industry with a clear path forward, a range of options for WTB recycling in the United States are modeled through development of baseline scenarios and the use of formal life cycle assessment (LCA). Model data have been collected through literature review, industry engagement, and expert opinion regarding current end of life practices and considerations surrounding equipment, labor, and logistics. A detailed baseline for WTB decommissioning processes has been developed and used to assess alternative approaches, such as on-site shredding to compare the impacts on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The developed LCA model and baseline scenarios for WTB recycling is used to assess the current WTB decommissioning practices in the United States along with emerging recycling pathways, including cement kiln co-processing and pyrolysis. Initial findings indicate that there are different approaches to decommissioning WTBs in the United States, each of which has unique implications for recycling. In light of this finding, additional results from the modeling will be used to better understand decommissioning practices and assist in making educated decisions on recycling pathways for the future. Throughout the analysis, focus was given to where international efforts might differ from the United States. WTB recycling is occurring worldwide, and different countries have different drivers for creating markets for recycled WTB materials. The contrasts and similarities between the United States and other countries offer insight to areas of opportunity that the United States could investigate and areas that can be readily transferred from existing solutions. By modeling and characterizing the current decommissioning practices and potential recycling solutions for the United States, a clearer vision will be created for pathways forward as to how to handle end of life WTBs to enable more efficient and cost-effective opportunities for material recovery from end-of-life WTBs.

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Section: Current Industrialized End Of Life Strategies In the Us For ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Development of wind turbine blade recycling baselines in the United States

Korey,

Sproul,

Rencheck

et al. 2023

IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The expanding wind power sector fuels the continuous and rapid growth in the demand for WTBs . The development of effective processes for handling WTBs after their 20–25-year service life is of utmost importance in managing the climate crisis and mitigating the environmental consequences of the renewable energy source’s growth . Properly recycling of WTBs poses a significant challenge to environmental protection.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“… 10 The development of effective processes for handling WTBs after their 20–25-year service life is of utmost importance in managing the climate crisis and mitigating the environmental consequences of the renewable energy source’s growth. 11 Properly recycling of WTBs poses a significant challenge to environmental protection. Currently, the majority of WTB waste is disposed of in landfills.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coaxial Layered Fiber Spinning for Wind Turbine Blade Recycling

Thippanna,

Ramanathan,

Ravichandran

et al. 2024

ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng.

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Plastics' long degradation time and their role in adding millions of metric tons of plastic waste to our oceans annually present an acute environmental challenge. Handling endof-life waste from wind turbine blades (WTBs) is equally pressing. Currently, WTB waste often finds its way into landfills, emphasizing the need for recycling and sustainable solutions. Mechanical recycling of composite WTB presents an avenue for the recovery of glass fibers (GF) for repurposing as fillers or reinforcements. The resulting composite materials exhibit improved properties compared to the pure PAN polymer. Through the employment of the dry-jet wet spinning technique, we have successfully manufactured PAN/GF coaxial-layered fibers with a 0.1 wt % GF content in the middle layer. These fibers demonstrate enhanced mechanical properties and a lightweight nature. Most notably, the composite fiber demonstrates a significant 24.4% increase in strength and a 17.7% increase in modulus. These fibers hold vast potential for various industrial applications, particularly in the production of structural components (e.g., electric vehicles), contributing to enhanced performance and energy efficiency.

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“…For operating machines, digitization has grown in the wind energy field including the use of digital twins [14]- [16] for operations. Further, new materials systems are also under investigation to specifically address end-oflife decisions and offer more recycling options for blade materials [17].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Composite materials in wind energy: design, manufacturing, operation, and end-of-life

Griffith,

Cao,

et al. 2023

IOP Conf. Ser.: Mater. Sci. Eng.

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Wind energy has consistently grown over recent decades and has grown in many aspects including in terms of installed capacities, turbine size, blade length, and grid penetration. Along with this, wind energy is one of the largest producers of composite structures, and as a result is one of the largest users of composite materials. For wind energy applications, composite materials require high reliability, low-cost, and near-term and future industry goals are to reuse or recycle composite materials. These requirements are quite challenging as wind energy faces a challenging operating environment, which puts great pressure on wind blade materials over their entire life cycle. This paper aims to examine the challenges of composite materials for wind energy applications, and to highlight a few research studies that offer potential new solutions and new insights across the entire life cycle of composites for wind energy systems ranging from the design phase, to manufacturing, to operation, and finally to the end-of-life phase.

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Recycling of wind turbine blades: Recent developments

Cited by 23 publications

References 29 publications

Development of wind turbine blade recycling baselines in the United States

Development of wind turbine blade recycling baselines in the United States

Coaxial Layered Fiber Spinning for Wind Turbine Blade Recycling

Composite materials in wind energy: design, manufacturing, operation, and end-of-life

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