Old fan "huan" new machine: energy storage, cement, bridge, make clean energy more "clean"

At Veolia's processing plant, the small pieces of blade are finally cut into small pieces the size of pebbles, which the cement plant can mix with other materials and put into the cement kiln. From the time the fan blades are removed to the ground, to the time they are fully treated at the cement plant, it can take only a few weeks.

According to the environmental impact analysis conducted by Quantis, the net effect of leaf recycling through cement kiln collaborative treatment stands out among all recycling categories. Compared to traditional cement manufacturing, blade recycling reduces CO2 emissions in cement production by 27% and water consumption by 13%. In addition, by recycling every 7 tons of fan blades, cement kilns can avoid consuming nearly 5 tons of coal, 2.7 tons of silica, 1.9 tons of limestone and nearly 1 ton of additional mineral raw materials. Due in large part to the avoidance of coal consumption, this leaf recycling also produces net positive environmental benefits for human health, ecosystem quality and resource consumption. Cement produced from recycled leaf materials has the same characteristics and properties as cement produced by conventional methods and meets all applicable building standards.

The agreement between GE and Veolia is expected to recycle and reuse thousands of blades, contributing to the cement industry's decarbonization goals. In line with its decarbonization vision, GE Renewable Energy is committed to reducing the environmental impact of its products throughout their life cycle, including becoming carbon neutral by the end of 2020. The GE Renewable Energy Group business will collaborate with other partners along the value chain to drive sustainability through innovation.

3. Hou Xianglin team of the Institute of Coal Chemistry of the Chinese Academy of Sciences -- skillfully disassembling the "ultimate material" and "decommissioning" fans to turn waste into treasure

"This research can not only turn 'retired' fan blades into waste, but also apply to many high-end manufacturing industries to safely dispose of 'stubborn' solid waste." The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanxi Institute of Coal Chemistry recently came the good news, 311 research group researcher Hou Xianglin team after more than ten years of dedicated research, mastered the "dismantling" of the main material of the fan blade - thermosetting carbon fiber resin composite material method, to achieve green recycling, waste into treasure.

The shell of the wind turbine blade is often made of glass fiber reinforced resin, and the tip and blade are made of higher strength carbon fiber. The molecular structure of these composites is extremely strong and aerodynamic, making the blades lighter and longer, allowing the fan to absorb more wind energy. Among them, thermosetting resin accounts for about 30%, equivalent to the filling in concrete buildings, while carbon fiber, glass fiber, etc. account for about 70%, equivalent to the reinforcement in concrete, the combination of the two is indestructible. Commonly used carbon fiber composite materials are mainly composed of carbon fiber and thermosetting resin composite, with insoluble and non-melting characteristics, known as the "ultimate material", recycling value is high, but difficult to achieve.

The most critical issue is that from the perspective of the service life of wind turbines, China is about to usher in a large wave of fan blade scrap, with tens of thousands of units. "Not only fan blades, but also many high-end manufacturing industries are using this composite material, which has high economic value if it can be recycled." Foreign research teams have carried out relevant studies one after another, but have not made much progress." Researcher Hou Xianglin further introduced that ordinary thermoplastics, such as plastic film in farmland, have a linear molecular chain structure that takes 200 to 400 years to degrade naturally, while the molecular chain of thermosetting resins is a rigid three-dimensional network structure. In other words, composite materials based on thermosetting resins, although the recycling value is high, but can not be naturally degraded, disassembly is even more difficult.

Hou Xianglin's team prospectively carried out research on thermosetting resins, hoping to open up a path for the recovery of a large number of thermosetting polymer materials that are about to be "retired". On the basis of many years of previous research, researchers such as Deng Tiansheng and Wu Shaodi, members of Hou Xianglin's team, selected the best performance from more than ten catalysts and obtained the key data of the test, which was the first in China to "disassemble" its molecular structure under relatively mild conditions to form a long chain thermoplastic polymer or resin synthetic monomer. This method is currently more in line with the recycling economy of the good method of reuse, the recovered resin products can be made into epoxy asphalt, and then further treatment can get bisphenol A, etc., the market price of thousands of yuan or even tens of thousands of yuan per ton, the economic benefits are very considerable.