Upcycling of decommissioned wind turbine blades through pyrolysis

Abstract

The worldwide installed capacity of wind power currently stands at 743 GW to offset 1.1 billion tons of CO2 emissions. However, extensive wind energy usage has led to the accumulation of large numbers of decommissioned wind turbine blades. This has become a major environmental issue. Unlike other parts of wind turbines (e.g., nacelle, tower, and foundation), wind turbine blades are typically made of fiber (carbon fiber or glass fiber)-reinforced lightweight polymer composites. Because of the inhomogeneity and complicated nature of these blades, their recycling is economically challenging. Pyrolysis can be a promising option to produce energy and useful materials through recycling of complicated inhomogeneous waste substances. Thus, pyrolytic recycling of decommissioned wind turbine blades would become a solution not only for their disposal but also for the recovery of high-value products (i.e., upcycling of decommissioned wind turbine blades). To gain a better knowledge of an effective end-of-life option for processing wind turbine blades, literature survey was also carried out extensively to cover the existing pyrolysis processes for the recovery of materials and energy from decommissioned wind turbine blades for the first time. The challenges associated with the pyrolysis of wind turbine blade materials are discussed, along with future perspectives in this research field.