Aditya Birla Advanced Materials & Siemens Gamesa successfully created the RecyclableBlade

At the Aditya Birla Group (ABG), sustainable business framework is based on three pillars—responsible stewardship, stakeholder engagement and future proofing including our supply chains. ABG has created an actionable framework to move towards international standards while learning to manage disruptive forces and modifying the strategic business plan along the way.

Aditya Birla Advanced Materials, has made great strides in developing path-breaking sustainable materials. Recyclamine® Technology is one such contribution to circularity. This innovative technology, which was developed over a decade, enables epoxy thermosets to become recyclable and reworkable.

Wind turbines are a great source of clean power, but the wind turbine blades end up in landfills as they are not-recyclable. As the number of installations and turbine sizes continue to increase, the call for wind circularity is becoming ever more important with some countries planning to introduce strict requirements for wind turbine blades’ recyclability. Therefore, recycling wind turbine blades has become increasingly important.

Aditya Birla Advanced Materials has been working with Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy to develop such recyclable wind blades. While Siemens Gamesa has been committed to wind circularity for some time now, it has always proven difficult to recycle wind turbine blades in a cost-efficient way. Under a partnership to make advancement in circularity, the two partners worked closely for the development of a new resin system used in wind turbine blades. Following a step-by-step process, the collaboration has successfully materialized into commercial production of the RecyclableBlade - the world's first recyclable wind turbine blade.

Working in collaboration with Aditya Birla Advanced Materials, Siemens Gamesa pioneered wind circularity with the RecyclableBlade, the world’s first fully recyclable blade.

The R&D team at Aditya Birla Advanced Materials worked in close co-ordination with Siemens Gamesa’s technology team to develop a novel recyclable epoxy resin system, leveraging the company’s proprietary Recyclamine ® technology. “Siemens Gamesa has been our strategic partner in the wind industry.” said Pradip Kumar Dubey, CEO, Aditya Birla Advanced Materials. “Over the years, we have worked together on several next generation resin systems that have enabled improving quality and increasing productivity in blade manufacturing. With the recyclable resin system that enables the recyclable blade, we have taken a massive leap forward to meet Siemens Gamesa’s aspiration of future materials.”"It was around five years ago when we started to look into the whole idea of recyclability of materials used in the wind turbine blade," explains Harald Stecher, Blade materials engineer. "We developed a multi-generation plan that contained our ideas for future materials. This laid down a path to begin discussion on what the technical properties and sustainability requirements were for our resin development in the short, mid and long-term. And while we shared this proposal with all our resin suppliers, Aditya Birla Advanced Materials was the one who took it up and came back to us with an idea that matched our needs."

Unlike conventional materials, the recyclable resin system enables recycling of blade and recovery of reinforcement and the resin matrix. The recovered blade materials can be reused and repurposed, bringing them back into the system and closing the loop. Furthermore, the resin has been designed for extra slow reactivity to enable improved processability and cure faster than conventional materials, thereby contributing towards lowering cycle time in blade manufacturing.

"The technology that Aditya Birla Advanced Materials developed to suit our specific requirements like long mould open time and recyclability is the one that we believe does the job in the best way," adds Jonas Pagh Jensen, Environmental specialist at Siemens Gamesa. "It not only fits our requirements but offers a low-energy demanding way of getting the materials back for new applications. This in turn translates to a far more cost-efficient process than what is available in the market today."

Importantly, the RecyclableBlade is made from a new type of resin, the blade is produced the same way as a standard blade and is based on the same IntegralBlade® manufacturing process, meaning that there is no increased implementation risk associated with the new resin system.

Value-Chain Approach and Circular Economy at the heart of Technology

On the successful partnership, Pradip commented: “Siemens Gamesa understood the value of Recyclamine ® Technology and were involved with us since the beginning of development. After a year of hard work, we are glad to take this to the market! We are excited about its potential impact on the wind industry and its contribution towards a circular economy”.

"When Aditya Birla Advanced Materials first presented the new resin solution to us, it was at a conceptual stage," adds Harald. "We worked with Aditya Birla Advanced Materials very closely to ensure that our requirements were fulfilled and this eventually translated to the success of the RecyclyableBlade. It was a true value-chain approach."

"From the start it was clear that Aditya Birla Advanced Materials is a very interesting development partner because they have good, in-depth knowledge of epoxy resins. They also have state-of-the-art testing facilities and labs, so they can run a lot of testing independently before they even present materials to us. On top of this, they have a big research group that responds extremely fast to whatever technical questions we raise," continues Harald.

The winning collaboration between Aditya Birla Advanced Materials and Siemens Gamesa proves to be a game changer for the wind industry and is a testimony of the partnership that reinforces commitment towards sustainability and circularity.