In-situ pyrolysis kinetic analysis and fixed-bed pyrolysis behavior of ex-service wind turbine blades

After the peak of rapid wind power development, a large amount of wind turbine blades reach/exceed their service life due to aging or damage. These ex-service wind turbine blades (EWTB) will increase the issue of its high-efficient utilization in the future decades. Among several treatment methods, pyrolysis has been considered as a promising solution to separate inorganic fiberglass and make organic epoxy resin (OER) high-value-added converted. However, the pyrolysis mechanism, chemical composition, and fiberglass separation of EWTB have not been deeply studied. In this paper, the synthetic model compound of epoxy resin was firstly used to investigate the thermal weight loss and pyrolysis kinetics, the thermal weight loss temperature range of which was 300 ∼ 480 °C. The apparent activation energy was minimum when the conversion rate was 0.6, and the pyrolysis mechanism was determined by the Coats-Redfern method as a diffusion control. On this basis, a lab-scale fixed-bed was conducted to study fast-heating pyrolysis characteristics of EWTB. It could be analyzed that the chemicals in the pyrolytic liquid were a series of phenolics with methyl and vinyl substituted benzene rings (e.g., bisphenol A, p-isopropenyl phenol, and phenol). Bisphenol A presented a relatively high selectivity of 51.02%, which could be recycled as the main raw material for the synthesis of epoxy resins. Furthermore, clean fiberglass could be separated by combusting the residual carbon in pyrolytic solids. These results might be useful for achieving the separation and resource utilization of organic and inorganic components of EWTB.