Wind Turbine Giant Develops Solution To Keep Blades Out of Landfills

[Assimilator]

Vestas unveils circularity solution to end landfill for turbine blades

www.vestas.com

Turbine blades have previously been challenging to recycle due to the chemical properties of epoxy resin, a resilient substance that was believed to be impossible to break down into re-usable components. This has led to many technology leaders attempting to replace or modify epoxy resin with alternatives that can be more easily treated. Vestas’ solution is enabled by a novel chemical process that can chemically break down epoxy resin into virgin-grade materials. The chemical process was developed in collaboration with Aarhus University, Danish Technological Institute, and Olin the partners of the CETEC project, a coalition of industry and academia established to investigate circular technology for turbine blades.

A massive step forward.

 

[AnotherReader]

Vestas unveils circularity solution to end landfill for turbine blades

www.vestas.com

A massive step forward.

This is a pretty big deal. This quote from the press release is pretty promising

Once this new technology is implemented at scale, legacy blade material currently sitting in landfill, as well as blade material in active windfarms, can be disassembled, and re-used. This signals a new era for the wind industry, and accelerates our journey towards achieving circularity,

 

[lemonadesoda]

Today I learned that wind turbine blades are made of epoxy resin.

 

[TumbleGeorge]

wind turbine blades

According to a report from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Table 30), depending on make and model wind turbines are predominantly made of steel (66-79% of total turbine mass); fiberglass, resin or plastic (11-16%); iron or cast iron (5-17%); copper (1%); and aluminum (0-2%).

 

[Wirko]

Vestas unveils circularity solution to end landfill for turbine blades

www.vestas.com

A massive step forward.

For printed circuit boards too.

What bothers me is that they didn't mention the glass (or carbon or other) fibres, which make up the other half of the composite material. It's possible that the resin gets somehow dissolved/liquefied, while fibres remain intact, so they can then be processed separately.

 

[Wrigleyvillain]

Yeah Im back and been lurking-first new rig in like 8 years...got into other things for awhile-and finally reset my password to say this is cool news.

Edit: Hey look my old mITX rig...and I have no clue what my tag means anymore...lmao. Quote still works.

Edit2: Oh yeah play the objective! That still works too

 

[Selaya]

This is a pretty big deal. This quote from the press release is pretty promising

brb buying up landfills

 

[Count von Schwalbe]

For printed circuit boards too.

What bothers me is that they didn't mention the glass (or carbon or other) fibres, which make up the other half of the composite material. It's possible that the resin gets somehow dissolved/liquefied, while fibres remain intact, so they can then be processed separately.

Anything but the resin can be easily recycled. Glass fibers are just glass, can be melted down. Steel is metal, can be melted down.

Heck, given expensive enough machinery, the fibers can probably be filtered out from the liquified resin and reused as-is.