Wind turbine blades made from glass fiber-reinforced polymer (GFRP) laminate composites can serve for up to 25 years. After that they end up in landfills — GFRP is recognized as hard-to-break-down. This has become a real challenge for the renewable energy industry. It is estimated that wind turbine blades account for 10 percent of Europe’s fiber-reinforced composite material waste. Researchers claim that by 2050, wind turbine blade waste will increase to around two million tonnes globally. With many countries banning composite materials from their landfills, recycling the used wind turbine blades becomes a challenge that researchers around the world are trying to solve.
“The aim of cutting global greenhouse gas emissions to close to zero by 2050 has been voiced several years ago. Since then, more and more countries have been committing to the net-zero goal by investing in renewable energy resources, including wind energy. However, the recycling of the wind turbine blades, which are as long as a football field, very sturdy and include plastic, is the main problem. Without a feasible solution to it, we cannot say that wind energy is fully sustainable and environmentally friendly,” says Dr Samy Yousef, a researcher at Kaunas University of Technology (KTU), Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Design.
Aiming to tackle this challenge, the research group headed by Dr Yousef have made several experiments involving decomposing GFRP into its constituent parts. Due to its strength, shaping simplicity and low manufacturing costs GFRP composites are used for a multitude of purposes — for car manufacturing, maritime vessels, oil and gas production, construction, sporting goods and more. Aircraft, wind energy and electronics are among the industries which use the GFRP most, with the global demand increasing annually by 6 percent. “GFRP composites used for many industries including wind turbine blades manufacturing are either thermoset or thermoplastic. In either case, they roughly consist only of two components — fiber and resin (in some cases with different micro or nanoparticle additions). As for the fibre, it usually is carbon fibre or fibreglass (the latter is cheaper)” explains Dr Yousef.