Offshore staff
EDINBURGH, UK — Researchers at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland have a £125,000 ($158,000) grant from Greencoat UK Wind for a 12-month project to develop their wind turbine blades recycling process.
The blades are manufactured from a composite of materials bonded together via epoxy and reinforced with fibers, which makes the separation and recycling process for spent blades both difficult and costly.
Professor Vasileios Koutsos and Dr. Dipa Roy from the University’s School of Engineering have devised a method for converting decommissioned blade materials to powders that could be used in surface coatings to protect engineering and structural components including new wind turbine blades, from corrosion and erosion.
Greencoat UK Wind, an investment trust specializing in renewable energy infrastructure, has provided the funds for the Added-value CoatTings (ACT) project.
The coating produced would help protect new wind turbine blades from erosion caused by raindrops and other particulates. It could also be used for building projects (i.e., to prevent corrosion on the cables of suspension bridges).
University of Edinburgh’s commercialization service, Edinburgh Innovations, helped secure the funding.
06.15.2023
