Forging the blades of the future with composite materials with circular, safe and sustainable design

BLADESCIRC will be one of the pioneering projects of exploring bio-based approaches to improve the sustainability of the wind energy sector. To this end, the project will research on biobased materials to develop new composite.

These new composites will combine high strength biobased carbon fibres and biobased structural resins with a dynamic performance.

The dynamic performance provided to the structural resins at molecular and supramolecular level will be the bases to design and develop a set of technologies for improving the lifetime, efficient decommissioning and increase the circularity of the offshore and onshore wind energy systems: i) Coatings with self-healing and ompniphobic properties for lifetime spanning, ii) Debondable adhesives formulation for enhanced recycling and maintenance, and iii) Green solvents and evolved enzymes for chemical and enzymatic degradation processes to recover high-quality fibres.

The proposed innovations are grounded on the results of previous or on-going projects (ECOXY, BIZENTE, VIBES, LIBRE or BIO-UPTAKE) that have shown the high potential of the biobased solutions, which, in addition to the modelling, testing, validation and multi-criteria assessment stages, will ensure that the new composite will have a competitive performance compared to the existing and commercial solutions.BLADESCIRC will collaborate with the ETIP Wind to engage stakeholders and promote collaborations and disseminate the results in the most relevant scientific forums.