Eco-Audit Comparison of End-of-Life Strategies for Thermoset and Thermoplastic Wind Turbine Blades

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Abstract
Wind turbine blade composites represent a growing end-of-life (EoL) waste challenge because thermoset blades lack commercially mature recycling routes, whereas thermoplastic blades offer improved recyclability through dissolution. This study compares the net environmental impact of ten EoL strategies for six 45 m blade configurations comprising thermoset epoxy and thermoplastic Elium resin systems reinforced with glass fiber, carbon fiber, and hybrid laminates, using an eco-audit methodology based on cumulative primary energy demand. Solvolysis is the leading route for thermoset blades and dissolution for thermoplastic blades, reducing net impact to 74.9%, 31.7%, and 22.4% and to 53.6%, 23.4%, and 18.3% of the landfill benchmark for glass-fiber, hybrid, and carbon-fiber configurations, respectively. Thermoplastic blades therefore fall 296.0, 273.1, and 217.2 GJ below their thermoset counterparts. High-voltage fragmentation, conventional pyrolysis, and microwave-assisted pyrolysis are counterproductive for thermoset glass-fiber blades, exceeding landfill by 26.6%, 18.9%, and 8.1%, respectively, because of high process energy and the limited value of recovered glass fiber. Both material-system selection and recycling-route selection govern end-of-life performance, with the route dimension dominating for glass-fiber blades. A Monte Carlo analysis in which all parameters vary simultaneously confirms that solvolysis and dissolution remain the preferred routes for their respective material systems in every run. Thermoplastic blades fall below their thermoset counterparts in 100.0% and 98.8% of runs for glass-fiber and hybrid laminates, but in 80.3% for carbon fiber, where the advantage is indicated rather than established. These results highlight the importance of designing future wind turbine blades through material selection and recyclable composite systems.
Funding Information
  • Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN-2019-04220)
  • Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (RGPIN-2025-04831)

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