Researchers in China have found a new way to use discarded blades to build long-lasting roads, which could be also another effective method helping to address the mounting issue of disposed blades.
Although wind turbines are great for producing clean energy, addressing them when the time comes to decommission them can be challenging.
Around 96% of a wind turbine is made from recycled materials, including the shell, nacelle, and metallic internal components, but the long blades are typically made from fiberglass. This is especially true for blades that are reaching the end of their lifespan now, after having been in use for decades.
In a report published in 2023, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Denver, Colorado, estimated that between 3,000 and 9,000 turbine blades will be retired each year for the next 5 years in the US alone and that figure would then increase to between 10,000 and 20,000 until 2040.
Fiberglass is non-biodegradable and made up of a composite of very fine strands of plastic and glass, which is extremely difficult to recycle. Fiberglass blades are usually discarded as waste at landfills or incinerated.
Scientists at the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have found a process of crushing and chemically treating old blades into a material, which can be combined into asphalt mixtures and cement concrete for constructing roads.
In September of last year, they tried using the new material with a construction company to create the asphalt mixture and lay a section of the Qingfu Highway in the northwest Chinese city of Lanzhou. The road has reportedly not developed any cracks or rutting after five months in use.
This innovation method also joins the list of efforts that are also trying to recycle blades across the world. Washington-headquartered Global Fiberglass Solutions turns the blades into reinforced plastic pellets to manufacture durable products like maintenance hole covers.
Meanwhile, waste management giant Veolia shreds blades into small pieces that go in kilns to make cement. Additionally, Knoxville, Tennessee’s Carbon Rivers uses a high-temperature process, called pyrolysis, to recover strong fibers from blades, which then can be used as-is or in the form of thermoplastic fabrics or pellets to make heavy-duty automotive parts.
