Australian inventor solves daunting problem of wind farms

A team of Australian inventors has created a new solution to the daunting problem of what to do with a growing stream of carbon fiber glass composite (CFRP) waste.

While you may not have heard of this product, you definitely have seen it. Prized for being lightweight and incredibly strong, it is used in high-end products such as wind turbine blades, hydrogen tanks, building construction, aircraft and electric vehicles.

But like all new man-made technologies, they have a reasonably short life span. Wind turbine blades can stretch over 100 meters long, but generally can only be seen blowing in the wind for 20 to 25 years before they become inefficient – less so if struck by lightning or crashed into a bird. So what happens when they are no longer needed?

Quick Facts:

• CPFR waste from wind farms and aircraft could reach 840,300 tons annually by 2050

• CPFR production is projected to increase by 60% over the next decade.

• Dr Hadigheh’s team has patented a machine to precisely align recycled carbon fibers

Composites like coffee cups that are difficult to recycle

Until now, green energy essentials such as turbine blades have mostly been dumped in landfills as they were difficult to recycle. No wonder you think that any product made up of multiple materials is difficult to break and melt, for example, disposable coffee cups generally have a hidden plastic lining, which is why they usually go into the red basket, not in the yellow one.

Wanting to prevent this unnecessary waste, Dr Ali Hadigheh of the University of Sydney and his team of highly intelligent researchers set out to produce a technology to separate the two bonded materials and then recycle the carbon fibres.

This is a very valuable material, and only a few countries produce it, he said. In case there is a future supply chain problem, we need to be careful about every part of them. So we need to aim for recycling and reusing them into high end products and not low quality ones.

Can you explain how the recycling process works?

Tearing the ties has not been easy, and previous attempts had been uncomfortably energy-intensive. The new method involves a hybrid thermochemical system. This means that the material is exposed to a chemical reaction called solvolysis and then a high temperature process called pyrolysis which further deconstructs them.

The story continues

With the use of solvolysis, less heat was required during the pyrolysis process and this resulted in less energy consumption. Reusing them requires only 20% of what is normally required to create virgin material.

The researchers also found that the fibers recovered in the process were much longer than in previous attempts and had 93% retention of force. This was comparable to steel and twice as strong as aluminum, making it a lightweight alternative to these products.

Dr Hadigheh said a South Korean industrial firm has already shown interest in another of his patented inventions and the recycling technology is ready to be adapted to the market, but there is a catch.

We have shown that we can use this recycling for different types of industries, but we don’t have an active industry in Australia. There are no plans for recycling these composites, he said she.

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