Tens of thousands of tonnes of fibreglass wind turbine blades and other composite waste end up in landfill or incinerators each year, but a new process aims to recover the glass fibres in near-virgin quality so they can be reused. The problem is that glass-reinforced polymer composites—strong, lightweight materials used in everything from wind turbines to car parts—are almost impossible to recycle once set. Current methods degrade the fibres, producing low-value filler rather than material that can replace virgin glass. This is already damaging the composites industry, and the waste stream is growing as early wind turbines reach the end of their working life. PRoGrESS will scale up a fluidised bed process developed at the University of Strathclyde that thermally recovers glass fibres from scrap, then treats them to restore their strength. The project will validate continuous operation with real-world waste from different sources, and develop products—such as bulk moulding compounds—that manufacturers can use without redesigning their existing processes. If successful, the technology could create a high-value recycling route for composite waste in the UK, reducing the need for landfill and cutting the energy required to produce new glass fibre. That would help keep a key lightweight material viable for construction, automotive, and renewable energy industries.
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There is an urgent need for high-value recycling routes for Glass Reinforced Polymer composites (GRP). At present almost all of the ~80 kt \[1\] of thermoset GRP scrap generated in UK and around 530 kt \[2\] in Europe goes to landfill or energy from waste annually. GRP scrap will increase with End-of-Life (EoL) wind turbine blades likely to reach over 20,000 tonnes/yr. in UK by mid 2030s \[4\]. WindEurope's call for ban on landfill of decommissioned wind turbine blades by 2025 adds greater pressure for new recycling options. Recyclability and recycled content are equally important in construction and automotive. While increased durability and lower weight make GRP products more sustainable in the long term, limited recycling options are already damaging the GRP industry. Today all processes for recycling GRP are down-cycling and none are available at scale in the UK. WindEurope, Cefic and EuCIA strongly endorse reprocessing composite waste to produce higher value recyclates enabling production of new composites \[3\] as essential as we move to a more circular economy. PRoGrESS will scale up and commercialise a globally unparalleled, patented process developed at lab scale by University of Strathclyde (UoS) for thermal recovery and post-treatment of glass fibres from GRP scrap to near virgin quality. enabling the UK to be an early player in a growing market for recycling blade waste among other GRP composites. The project will scale up fluidised bed recovery, evaluating low impact and energy efficient measures for emissions treatment, heat recovery, waste handling and processing of recycled glass fibres (rGF). It will validate the process with steady-state continuous operation, trialling wastes with varying constituents from diverse sources. Focus in the PRoGrESS project will be on usability, creating products as close as possible to virgin to avoid disruption to existing processes, while reducing energy inputs for intermediate products, estimated at nearly 1/4 of impacts today. PRoGrESS will also seek to drive down cost providing data and demonstrators to validate commercial scale-up. PRoGrESS is led by Composites UK, with Aker Offshore Wind (AOW) as commercialisation lead, SUEZ for waste management operations, GRP Solutions as material distributor, Cubis Systems to develop bulk moulding compounds, University of Strathclyde (Advanced Composites Group and Lightweight Manufacturing Centre) as primary academic partner, and expert input from University of Nottingham. Data extrapolated from \[1\] Composites UK; \[2\] EuCIA; \[3\] WindEurope, Cefic and EuCIA (Accelerating Wind Turbine Blade Circularity -- 2020); \[4\] Zero Waste Scotland.
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