Researchers from the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics in China’s Gansu Province have proposed and tested in practice a method for strengthening road surfaces and building structures with additives made from the material of used wind turbine blades. The experiment was a success: five months after the road was laid with asphalt with the “blade” additive, not a single crack had formed on the section.
Image source: unsplash/Karsten Würth
For China, the need to dispose of end-of-life wind turbines is no small matter. The country is a leader in deploying renewable energy, including wind power. It will also be the first to face a huge wave of hard-to-recycle waste, most of which will be wind turbine blades.
The main composition of the blades is fiberglass, carbon fiber and epoxy resin for impregnation. Today, the blades are either stored in specially designated places (essentially, in landfills) or buried in ditches as garbage. Archaeologists of the future will be able to reconstruct the picture of the development of blade production in China from these remains if some asteroid suddenly breaks the chain of development of earthly civilization.
Seriously, the problem of blade disposal does not have a simple solution. Scientists from China have suggested crushing them, processing them using a special technology and adding them to asphalt and concrete as additives when laying roads and constructing buildings and structures.
In September 2024, the blade-laced asphalt was used to pave a section of road in Gansu Province as an experiment. Five months later, the road looks like new, without a single crack in the surface, according to the source. The scientists and the contractor hope to expand the experiment by laying the “miracle asphalt” on other road sections and in construction, promising effective recycling of wind turbine blades.
This looks interesting, but until it becomes known that microplastics have been found in living tissues of animals and humans. These concerns will not solve the problem of blade disposal, but they may force us to think about finding other methods.