Recently Composites World has been highlighting some things that are happening in the composites sustainability world. Seems like this is a topic of great interest to their readers – and that is a very good thing since they are the leading composites industry publication.
ZEBRA Project 100% Recyclable Wind Turbine Blade
I thought I would start off with this pic because it is a stark demonstration of just how big these things can get. Yes, those are people all lined up in front of this enormous beast. This blade is the outcome of the ZEBRA Project (Zero wastE Blade ReseArch) at LM Wind Power (Denmark), one of the largest wind turbine blade manufacturers in the world. From their website, LM Wind Power has made 270,850 wind turbine blades, and their blades are on 1/5 of the wind turbines worldwide. This is a company in Denmark, and they are the manufacturer of most if not all of the offshore wind turbine blades that are installed in the EU, mostly in the North Sea.
This blade is the first 100% recyclable commercial offshore (large scale) wind turbine blade. This project is a collaborative effort by LM Wind Power to manufacture the blade, Arkema for their Elium® thermoplastic resin, ENGIE for the wind turbine installation, and Owens Corning for the glass fiber used to make the blade.
A bit about thee companies is probably in order, since they are mostly European. LM Wind Power is a company headquartered in Denmark that specializes in the manufacture of turbine blades for the European wind power industry. Arkema S.A. is a large, multinational specialty chemicals company headquartered in Colombes, France. It is another one of these petrochemical companies that were spun out of an oil company, and they came from a restructuring of Total, the large French oil company. ENGIE S.A., a French multinational power company headquartered in La Defense, Coubevoie, France, again is a product of a merger between Gaz de France and Suez, a company that traces its roots back to the Universal Suez Canal Company. Engie installs and operates the largest number of wind farms in Europe, since they exited the coal fired power plant business in the 2015-2016 time frame to focus on renewables and energy efficiency services. And finally, Owens Corning is the world’s largest glass fiber manufacturer, with manufacturing plants worldwide.
The interesting development that I had not previously been aware of is the Elium® liquid thermoplastic resin from Arkema. This is apparently a thermoplastic, but it is in liquid form so it can be used in a resin infusion process. Of course, the Europeans don’t normally say how they do things because that information is typically very closely held since their patent laws are somewhat different than they are here in the US. But they do provide a Technical Data Sheet, and on that sheet it says that the Elium® resin is “an acrylic polymer diluted in a reactive monomer blend with processing additives that makes it very fluid”. Apparently it is a sort of thermoset, sort of thermoplastic formulation, but it also apparently is thermoformable and 100% recyclable. Arkema claims that this resin can be taken apart easily using a fairly specific catalyst. This is pretty new for the composites industry, and my guess is that this resin system will find wide use in a number of industries. If it becomes ubiquitous in the wind turbine blade manufacturing industry, this will go a long way to solving the most difficult and complex issue in sustainability that the wind turbine industry faces.
PA6 Cellulose Nanofiber 3D Printing Feedstock
In another development, Asahi Kasei of Tokyo and Aquafil S.p.A. in Italy have signed an MOU to develop a novel material for 3D printing. This material is going to use a polyamide 6 (PA6) resin system from Aquafil that they call Econyl Polymer and is made from post and pre-consumer waste like used fishing nets, old carpets, and industrial waste. Asahi Kasei has developed a cellulose (plant-based) nanofiber that this partnership is using as the reinforcement in this 3D printing material.
The cellulose nanofiber from Asahi Kasei is made from cotton linter, the short fibers removed from the cotton seed during processing. This apparently, along with the PA6 resin makes this material have high heat resistance and superior material recyclability over chopped glass fiber. So, this partnership intends to show off their new material in the EU, US, and Japan in the third quarter of 2025 at several trade shows.
Finally, this one is a bit off topic, but I’m including it just because I think this is fun. There is a company in Oklahoma City, Skydweller Aero, that has just successfully completed its first uncrewed autonomous flight test campaign.
Flight Test of Skydweller
This aircraft is all carbon fiber and is completely autonomous. To achieve their long duration flights, the entire upper surface of the aircraft is covered with light weight photovoltaic (solar) panels. The longest reported flights of this aircraft during the test series were 16 and 22 ½ hours. All of the flights were apparently launched from Stennis International Airport in Mississippi. This is quite the breakthrough and it is made possible by the use of all carbon fiber to make this aircraft as light as possible while still being able to withstand the rigors of long duration autonomous flight.
That’s about it for this week. I hope everyone that reads these posts enjoys them as much as I enjoy writing them. As usual I will post this first on my website – www.nedpatton.com – as well as on LinkedIn. And if anyone wants to provide comments to this, I welcome them with open arms. Comments, criticisms, etc. are all quite welcome. I really do want to engage in a conversation with all of you about composites because we can learn so much from each other as long as we share our own perspectives.
I also wanted to let everyone know that I have finished the first draft of my second book. This one is about what I have been writing in these newsletters for the last 6 months or so – sustainability of composites and a path to the future that does not include using fossil fuels for either the raw materials or the process energy to make composites. McFarland got back to me last week, and they decided that they will pick this one up as well. I am actually under contract with them for the book. My ingoing title is “Close the Circle, a Roadmap to Composite Materials Sustainability”. I’ll keep everyone posted as I polish off the remaining details of the book and get the pieces and parts of the book to McFarland. I believe I let everyone know about the process I went through on the first one, so this one will be largely the same. Fortunately McFarland has a fairly light hand on the editing, so it should come through this process relatively unscathed.
Finally, I still need to plug my first book, so here’s the plug. The book pretty much covers the watershed in composites, starting with a brief history of composites, then introducing the Periodic Table and why Carbon is such an important and interesting element. The book was published and made available last August, and is available both on Amazon and from McFarland Books – my publisher. However, the best place to get one is to go to my website and buy one. I will send you a signed copy for the same price you would get charged on Amazon, except that I charge $8 shipping. Anyway, here’s the link to get your signed copy: https://www.nedpatton.com/product-page/the-string-and-glue-of-our-world-signed-copy. And as usual, here’s a picture of the book.
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