A review on recycling and reuse methods for carbon fiber/glass fiber composites waste from wind turbine blades

Abstract

The development of novel strategies for recycling and reusing fiber composites is driven by various environmental and economic factors. Recycling materials mean that materials are processed with feasible processing methods or environment-friendly methods without deterioration of mechanical or physical performance enabling their reuse. Recycling end-of-life (EOL) waste of wind turbine (WT) blade composites is a critical challenge for renewable energy sector. This paper reviews various recycling methods (mechanical, thermal, chemical, and hybrid) and reuse of reclaimed fiber composites of carbon and glass fibers. Physical, mechanical, and chemical properties of recovered fibers and new composites (made of recovered fibers) have been discussed in detail. This paper aims to find out the optimum recycling process from existing recycling methods to recycle EOL waste of WT blades. Glass fibers (GFs) and carbon fibers (CFs) are energy-intensive to manufacture, which means these have high recycling capability in terms of the environment as well as an economic perspective. Challenges in the recycling of fibers have been identified from the available literature; future research possibilities with promising values of recovered fibers to reuse in some high-value structural applications have been highlighted.