CETEC Circular Economy for Thermoset Epoxy Composites

CETEC will make wind turbine blades recyclable by moving the indispensable epoxy composite into the circular economy. This will be accomplished by developing a circular economic recycling route in two steps: disassembly of epoxy composites followed by chemcycling of the disassembled epoxy. The novel technologies developed in CETEC, disassembly and chemcycling, will show results far beyond anything seen today. Disassembling an epoxy composite into its base components, fiber and epoxy, goes against the composite nature. However, CETEC partners have shown this possible in a previous project, DreamWind – now it must be matured to an industrial scale. Furthermore, partners have shown proof-of-principle for chemcycling recovering the valuable chemical building block bisphenol A from disassembled epoxy. Combining circular economy with technological advances, CETEC will secure the future of the wind industry and bring value creation in the order of billions of EUR for the consortium partners upon commercialization 3-5 years following project completion. Part of this value will be realized immediately as the circular economy recycling route developed will guide strategic ventures of Vestas for years to come. CETEC have a strong Danish presence as well as the dynamism to launch the technologies internationally. The achieved results will be commercialized on a global scale, accelerating the global transition to circular economy within composites in general.