What Are Wind Turbines Blades Made Of – Epoxy resins used to manufacture wind turbine blades are recycled using a method that can selectively break certain bonds, making the building blocks of these materials available for reuse.

‘This has so far been considered too challenging due to the chemical inertness of epoxy polymers,’ says Alexander Ahrens of the Interdisciplinary Nanoscience Center at Aarhus University, Denmark. ‘Using a ruthenium-based catalyst, our method targets a specific C–O bond that is formed during resin production.’ Epoxy composites are very robust, so they are often found in a range of products such as airplane wings, cars and even wind turbine blades, but recycling is not easy, so these parts usually end up in landfills.

What Are Wind Turbines Blades Made Of

‘This is highly undesirable due to the enormous size of the structures and the loss of value,’ says Ahrens. Due to this and environmental reasons, the disposal of wind turbine blades is already prohibited in several European countries. “It’s also important to note that none of the large commercial wind farms have been decommissioned yet, so most of the deactivated blades aren’t there yet, but they will be soon,” adds Ahrens.

How Long Are Wind Turbine Blades?

Epoxy composites are made by bonding meshes of glass or carbon fibers with a cross-linked epoxy polymer. ‘This cross-linking makes the materials extremely tough, but also means they cannot melt or dissolve. Therefore, duroplastics cannot be mechanically recycled,’ explains Ahrens. With the team’s approach, polymers can now be completely dissolved to recover high-quality fibers that can be reused to make new materials. The method also separates bisphenol A (BPA) from resins. ‘Regenerated BPA is also of high quality and could be reintroduced into existing production chains,’ notes Ahrens.

To recycle the composites, the researchers added pieces of the material to a mixture of toluene and isopropanol, added a ruthenium catalyst, and heated the reaction mixture to 160°C. “It’s a slow process, so it takes about three days, but during that time the polymer completely breaks down,” says Ahrens.

Cross-linked epoxy resins can be degraded by a new process. The blue circles represent the connecting parts, while the black lines represent the linear parts of the polymer. Ester bonds next to BPA (red) are aimed at polymer deconstruction

“I am excited to see that the chemical community is beginning to take a more serious look at the recycling of thermosets, especially as the retirement of the first generation of carbon fiber epoxy composite aircraft approaches,” comments Travis Williams of Southern University. California, USA, who was not involved in the study. ‘It is also very nice that this method tolerates glass fibres, which do not perform well in low pH digestion conditions.’

Repurposing Used Wind Turbine Blades

Carlos Navarro, who is working with Williams on chemical methods for recycling fiber-reinforced polymers, adds that this is an important step toward improving the circularity and sustainability of useful composite materials. “Researchers considered the recycling barrier of these composites to be chemical due to the strong epoxy resins and adjusted their recycling chemistry to target the vulnerabilities of the epoxy,” he says.

The team used a new approach to recycle pieces of a carbon fiber-based composite, a commercial fiberglass sample, and a scrap wind turbine blade. ‘The method works on commercial materials that are being used right now,’ says Ahrens. But he adds that large amounts of catalyst are needed. ‘This is problematic because it is an expensive and rare transition metal. We hope that by designing and optimizing the catalyst, it may be possible to drastically reduce the amount of catalyst. Only if this is possible, the increase would be sustainable. Open Access Policy Institutional Open Access Program Special Issues Guidelines Editorial Process Research and Publication Ethics Article Processing Fees Awards Testimonials

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Largest Ever Shipment Of Wind Turbine Blades Arrives At The Port Of Vancouver

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By Dimitris Al. Katsaprakakis Dimitris Al. Katsaprakakis Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar * , Nikos Papadakis Nikos Papadakis Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar and Ioannis Ntintakis Ioannis Ntintakis Scilit Preprints.org Google Scholar

Received: 16 August 2021 / Revised: 11 September 2021 / Accepted: 17 September 2021 / Published: 20 September 2021

What Happens To Wind Turbine Blades At The End Of Their Life Cycle?

The scope of this article is an overview of the possible causes that can lead to wind turbine blade failures, an assessment of their significance for turbine performance and safe operation, and a summary of suggested techniques for preventing these failures and eliminating their consequences. Damage to wind turbine blades can be caused by lightning, fatigue loading, ice accumulation on the blade surfaces, and exposure of the blades to airborne particles, causing so-called leading edge erosion. The above effects can lead to damage ranging from minor erosion of the outer surface to complete destruction of the blade. All potential causes of damage to wind turbine blades largely depend on the surrounding environment and climatic conditions. Consequently, choosing a placement site with favorable conditions is the most effective measure to reduce the possibility of knife damage. Otherwise, several techniques and methods have already been applied or are being developed to prevent blade damage, with the aim of reducing the risk of damage if it is not possible to eliminate it. The combined application of damage prevention strategies with the SCADA system is the optimal approach to adequate treatment.

According to the developed technologies and installed power plants for the production of electricity, wind energy is one of the leading renewable energy sources (RES) – apart from hydroelectric power, which is an old and very widespread, mature technology. A total of 744 GW of wind farm generation capacity was installed worldwide by the end of 2020, of which 93 GW was added during 2020 alone [1]. The evolution since 2015 in the world’s installed capacity of wind farms is shown in Figure 1.

According to the data shown in this figure, since 2015, 308.7 GW of new wind farm production capacity has been installed worldwide, which corresponds to a 70% increase in total capacity. The annual share of global electricity generation attributable to wind energy is estimated at 6% in 2020 [2], or approximately 1600 TWh [3], and is expected to increase to 30% by 2050 [2]. These figures show the importance of the contribution of wind energy to the energy transition.

The safe and profitable operation of wind farms requires their regular inspection and planned maintenance. These procedures become more important in areas with extreme weather conditions (high winds, thunderstorms, strong turbulence). Investors are often forced to choose such areas for wind farm project development due to the wide expansion of wind farm installations and licensing restrictions that are often imposed in certain geographic regions due to environmental, social or historical reasons [4, 5]. Therefore, the large number of wind farms that are already operating often face intense stresses due to strong winds, lightning, hail or rain and atmospheric turbulence.

Wind Turbines Create Clean Energy, But Challenging Waste Too

Wind turbine blades (WTB) are the most heavily loaded components of the entire structure [6, 7, 8]. These are the wind turbine components that are most likely to be damaged by interaction with the environment. As will be further explained in the following sections, they may be exposed to strong storm winds, raindrops or hail falling at speeds greater than 100 m/s, lightning, repeated wind loads and shearing effects, which may lead to intense shock or fatigue loads, potentially causing a number of different types of structural damage. These types of damage adversely affect the operation of wind turbines, with direct economic effects resulting from the shutdown of damaged wind turbines for repair (or at least low-efficiency operation in the case of minor damage) and, of course, the cost of the repair itself. Given the fact that wind turbine blades are large, undivided structures (a typical 2 MW medium-range blade is approximately 50 m long and weighs about 7000 kg), the costs of their repair are far from negligible. Furthermore, as the need for increased wind farm installations leads to the development of larger wind turbines, the cost of repairing a damaged blade will also increase, significantly affecting the economic efficiency of the overall investment.

In general, although structural failures of wind turbine blades are quite rare, they

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