Brian Westenhaus writes in OilPrice.com about a breakthrough in wind turbine waste management.
- Wind turbines blades mostly end up in landfills after they are decommissioned and if no solution is found the world could accumulate 43 million metric tons of wind turbine waste by 2050.
- Danish researchers at Aarhus University have developed a chemical process to breakdown the epoxy composite of wind turbine blades and simultaneously extract intact glass fibers.
- This development could solve part of wind’s waste problem and create a circular economy for wind turbines, and the automotive and aerospace industries.
“After six days of catalysis in the laboratory, a piece of a wind turbine blade was dissolved into intact glass fibers and bisphenol A, which can be used in the production of new blades – in addition to a fraction of various oligomers, which cannot be recycled. The metal piece was cast into the wing as part of the wind turbine’s lightning protection.”
Read the full article here.
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