Coaxial Layered Fiber Spinning for Wind Turbine Blade Recycling

Area of Science:

• Materials Science
• Environmental Science
• Composite Engineering

Background:

• Plastic waste, particularly from wind turbine blades (WTBs), poses a significant environmental challenge due to slow degradation and landfilling.
• Mechanical recycling of WTBs can recover glass fibers (GF) for reuse, creating value-added materials.
• There is a critical need for sustainable solutions to manage end-of-life composite materials.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and characterize novel composite fibers from recycled wind turbine blade materials.
• To investigate the potential of incorporating recovered glass fibers into a polymer matrix.
• To assess the mechanical performance enhancement of the resulting composite fibers.

Main Methods:

• Utilized dry-jet wet spinning technique to manufacture coaxial-layered polyacrylonitrile (PAN)/glass fiber (GF) composite fibers.
• Incorporated 0.1 wt % GF content in the middle layer of the PAN fibers.
• Conducted mechanical testing to evaluate the strength and modulus of the composite fibers.

Main Results:

• Successfully manufactured PAN/GF coaxial-layered fibers with enhanced mechanical properties and a lightweight nature.
• The composite fibers exhibited a significant 24.4% increase in strength compared to pure PAN.
• A notable 17.7% increase in modulus was observed in the composite fibers.

Conclusions:

• The developed PAN/GF composite fibers offer a promising sustainable alternative for material repurposing.
• These fibers demonstrate superior mechanical performance, making them suitable for demanding industrial applications.
• Potential applications include structural components in electric vehicles, contributing to improved performance and energy efficiency.