Turbine blades have a finite usable life of about 20 years, but because the resins used to create the massive blades can’t be easily dissolved, the foam and carbon fiber that make up the majority of the blade can’t be recycled. To solve this issue, NREL’s Nic Rorrer and colleagues have developed an epoxy, dubbed PECAN, that can be produced from waste glycerol or sugars and is dissolvable.
The team was able to demonstrate the use of PECAN in a 29.5-foot long wind turbine blade. The test blade demonstrated similar strength to that of blades manufactured using the traditional resin, and PECAN could be broken down via methanolysis. About 80% of blade’s materials could be recovered.
“Just because something is bio-derivable or recyclable does not mean it’s going to be worse,” Rorrer says. “It really challenges this evolving notion in the field of polymer science, that you can’t use recyclable materials because they will underperform.”
The work was recently published in the journal Science.