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Wind turbine manufacturer Vestas claims it has solved a long-standing dilemma for the renewables sector – by developing a re-usable blade.
The company has developed a solution that renders epoxy-based turbine blades as circular, without the need for changing the design or composition of blade material.
The company says this newly-discovered chemical technology can be applied to blades currently in operation and will ultimately eliminate the need for blade redesign or landfill disposal at decommissioning.
The recycling of turbine blades is current a challenge because of the chemical properties of epoxy resin, a resilient substance that was believed to be impossible to break down into re-usable components.
Vestas’ solution, developed in partnership with Olin and Stena Recycling, breaks down epoxy resin into virgin-grade materials.
Lisa Ekstrand, vice president and head of sustainability at Vestas, said: “Until now, the wind industry has believed that turbine blade material calls for a new approach to design and manufacture to be either recyclable, or beyond this, circular, at end of life. Going forward, we can now view old epoxy-based blades as a source of raw material. 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.”
Vestas and its partners now plan to focus on scaling up the novel chemical disassembly process into a commercial solution.
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