NREL publishes paper on manufacturing wind blades that can be recycled

The U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is examining the idea of manufacturing wind blades that can be recycled and reused.

In a report, called “Manufacture and testing of biomass-derivable thermosets for wind blade recycling”, NREL researchers detailed how a resin, made of materials produced using bio-derivable resources, may be the key. The paper was published in the new issue of the journal Science

The resin performs on par with the current industry standard of blades made from a thermoset resin and outperforms certain thermoplastic resins intended to be recyclable.

The researchers built a prototype 9-meter blade to demonstrate the manufacturability of an NREL-developed biomass-derivable resin nicknamed PECAN, which stands for PolyEster Covalently Adaptable Network. Under existing technology, wind blades last about 20 years and they can be shredded for use as concrete filler.

PECAN marks a leap forward because of the ability to recycle the blades using mild chemical processes. In tests, the chemical process was able to completely break down the prototype blade in six hours.

The chemical recycling process allows the components of the blades to be recaptured and reused again and again, Ryan Clarke, a postdoctoral researcher at NREL and first author of the new paper, said.

“It is truly a limitless approach if it’s done right,” he said.

The paper involved work from investigators at five NREL research hubs, including the National Wind Technology Center and the BOTTLE Consortium.

“The PECAN method for developing recyclable wind turbine blades is a critically important step in our efforts to foster a circular economy for energy materials,” Johney Green, NREL’s associate laboratory director for Mechanical and Thermal Engineering Sciences, said.

Initially, the scientists wanted to make a wind blade that could be recyclable and began experimenting with what feedstock they could use to achieve that goal. Through this they developed a resin using bio-derivable sugars.

“Just because something is bio-derivable or recyclable does not mean it’s going to be worse,” Nic Rorrer, one of the two corresponding authors of the Science paper, said. “It really challenges this evolving notion in the field of polymer science, that you can’t use recyclable materials because they will underperform or creep too much.”

Composites made from the PECAN resin held their shape, withstood accelerated weatherization validation, and could be made within a timeframe similar to the current manufacturing process for wind turbine blades.

“Nine meters is a scale that we were able to demonstrate all of the same manufacturing processes that would be used at the 60-, 80-, 100-meter blade scale,” Robynne Murray, the second corresponding author, said.

The other coauthors, all from NREL, are Erik Rognerud, Allen Puente-Urbina, David Barnes, Paul Murdy, Michael McGraw, Jimmy Newkirk, Ryan Beach, Jacob Wrubel, Levi Hamernik, Katherine Chism, Andrea Baer, and Gregg Beckham.

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