EoLO-HUBs: Wind turbine blades End of Life through Open HUBs for circular materials insustainable business models

At a glance

• Recycling wind turbine rotor blades is difficult to date, as they are made from composites which are hard to separate.
• The EU project EoLO-HUBs has set itself the goal of developing requirements for a holistic approach to recycling – from innovative methods to business models and knowledge transfer. Among other things, two pilot plants are to be built in Germany and Spain.
• Fraunhofer IWES is particularly working on the development of recycling processes and dismantling strategies.

The challenge

The recycling of wind turbine rotor blades is challenging due to the materials involved: the blades are made of plastics reinforced with either glass or carbon fibers. As the materials are bound together securely, recycling mostly takes the form of downcycling for use as filling materials, for example in road construction, or thermal recovery at present. As Europe’s installed wind turbines are aging, the topic of recycling rotor blades will become increasingly important in the years to come.

The solution

The EoLO-HUBs project is therefore aiming to establish a cluster-based approach for the implementation of sustainable business models covering all aspects of the dismantling and recycling of the rotor blades once they reach the end of their useful life. The scientists will develop and validate innovative recycling technologies for composite materials. The focus will be on three main areas:

1. Removal and pretreatment of the blades, including their handling, NDT, dismantling, shredding, and sorting.
2. Sustainable fiber recovery by means of low-carbon pyrolysis and solvolysis with green chemistry (use of biodegradable chemicals).
3. Upgrading processes to refine the recovered fibers.

Two pilot plants will be built in Germany and Spain to test and validate the developed methods. In addition, the results of the research will be made available for the development of business models in a digital knowledge center.

The added value

Fraunhofer IWES is particularly working on the development of recycling processes and dismantling strategies. The aim is to ensure the subsequent use of the materials obtained so that they can be put to good use.