REWIND | Efficient decommissioning, repurposing and recycling to increase the circularity of end-of-life wind energy systems.

Summary
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.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101147226
Start date: 01-05-2024
End date: 30-04-2028
Total budget - Public funding: 4 010 527,50 Euro - 3 997 027,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

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.

Status

SIGNED

Call topic

HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-02-15

Update Date

23-12-2024
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Horizon Europe
HORIZON.2 Global Challenges and European Industrial Competitiveness
HORIZON.2.5 Climate, Energy and Mobility
HORIZON.2.5.0 Cross-cutting call topics
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-02
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-02-15 Critical technologies to improve the lifetime, efficient decommissioning and increase the circularity of offshore and onshore wind energy systems
HORIZON.2.5.2 Energy Supply
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-02
HORIZON-CL5-2023-D3-02-15 Critical technologies to improve the lifetime, efficient decommissioning and increase the circularity of offshore and onshore wind energy systems