Objective
REWIND aims at developing critical technologies for dismantling end-of-life (EoL) wind turbine blades (WTB) (evaluation, advanced cutting, etc.) and implementing new methodologies for composites repurposing and recycling (catalytic pyrolysis and solvolysis) to increase the circularity of WTB, increasing the industrial applications of the EoL composites, and avoiding the current landfilling or incineration. The main composition of the composite waste is expected to be epoxy resin/carbon fibre (CF), epoxy resin/glass fibre (GF) and polyester resin/GF. The new methodologies will address the following challenges: 1) Study and development of suitable disassembly, quality inspection and characterisation of the composite waste, to be able to understand composite waste properties. As a result, it will be possible to decide if composite parts from EoL products should be repurposed or recycled depending on their value. 2) Show potential high-value applications for composite end-of-life: repurposing will be demonstrated through manufacturing 2 demonstrators (for construction and automotive sector). This will be done by matching specified requirements with dismantled materials using software and hardware tools to facilitate the fragmentation processes. 3) New innovative pyrolysis and solvolysis methods for recycling will be developed and tested to significantly reduce the processing temperature and time for those parts that cannot be used in repurposing. This will allow to save energy, and together with the post-treatments, improving the quality of the materials recovered (e.g. weaved fibres, sized fibres, recycled polyester resin, recycled epoxy resin and epoxy vitrimer resins based on recycled monomers). Secondary raw materials obtained will be used to manufacture 2 demonstrators for wind energy sector: a small wind blade root section and composites patches for blades repairing. REWIND technologies should be scalable to process high volumes of waste in the near future.
Fields of science
- natural sciencescomputer and information sciencessoftware
- engineering and technologymaterials engineeringcomposites
- engineering and technologymechanical engineeringvehicle engineeringautomotive engineering
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringenergy and fuelsrenewable energywind power
- engineering and technologyenvironmental engineeringwaste managementwaste treatment processes
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
46980 PATERNA VALENCIA
Spain
The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.