A Chinese company has completed production of a 360 feet recyclable wind turbine blade. Developed by CRRC, the blade achieves a recovery rate exceeding 95% for key raw materials.

The milestone marks a significant step toward the commercial-scale recycling of ultra-large wind turbine blades and provides a solution for managing blades at the end of their service life.

CRRC revealed that the blade represents a breakthrough in both materials and recycling technology. It uses a recyclable material system centered on a high-efficiency, debondable infusion resin. While fully meeting the demanding performance requirements for high strength, stiffness and fatigue life, the blade uses reversible chemical debonding technology to separate the resin efficiently from the reinforcing fibers.

Once recovered, materials including the resin and fibers can be reused in wind equipment, automotive manufacturing, infrastructure construction and other high-value applications. This moves wind turbine blades beyond the traditional “single-use” model, enabling closed-loop recovery and high-value reuse of their constituent materials, according to CRRC.

The recyclable blade system can support customers’ efforts to meet international sustainability objectives and reporting obligations, including those under the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). It is also well suited to high-capacity offshore wind turbines and combines safety, environmental performance and cost-effectiveness. Together, these advantages strengthen CRRC’s position as it brings its offshore wind equipment to international markets and competes in the global renewable energy sector, according to a press release. CRRC claims its new blade uses a recyclable material system based on a high-efficiency, debondable infusion resin. The technology is designed to allow the resin to be separated from reinforcing fibres through reversible chemical debonding.

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