Living, Innovative Materials for Circular, Hierarchically structured, Erosion resistant, Natural Blades (LICHEN-BLADES)
Contact: Assistant professor,
Wind turbine blades (WTBs) are designed to withstand the loads and erosion processes during service. Their permanently cross-linked material structure poses thus far unresolved technical and economic challenges for re-manufacturing and recycling, resulting in materials that will not meet our renewable energy needs.
To create blades for a circular economy, we need reshapable low embodied energy materials, to adopt circular design strategies, improve lifetime of the materials, while ensuring their implementation by industry through new circular business models and value chains, brought together in LICHEN-BLADES. We propose a dramatically new concept for blades with reduced carbon footprint, designed for structural re-use opportunities, that will realize the functionality of the first use-cycle and successive use-cycles.
The blade will be made with minimum waste additive manufacturing of carbon capturing natural fibre reinforced thermoplastic materials. Self-regenerative (Lichen) and biologically inspired leading edges will reduce erosion, thereby extending lifetime. At the end of service life, the blades are re-used into reshaped high-value functional components for construction to fully utilise their embodied CO2. To understand viable routes to market, business models for the circular economy will be developed, aiming to keep materials at the highest value as long as possible while distributing value over all stakeholders.
The consortium covers the whole value chain of material suppliers, blade design and manufacturers, wind farm operators, and end-users of recovered components, who will actively collaborate in the research. We will create proof-of-concepts demonstrating the innovations, which pave the way for societal impact through implementation by our stakeholders.
SDU engage in this project through close collaboration with Maastricht University who was in charge of obtaining the project funding with key partners in the Lichen Blades consortium
Effective start/end date: 01/02/2025 → 31/12/2026
Collaborative partners
- Maastricht University
- Delft University of Technology (TU) (lead)
- Bcomp
- Suzlon Energy Limited
- Heijmans Infra BV
- ENECO Wind BV
- ECHT Regie in Transitie BV
- InfraCore Company
- DNV