Some day we’ll be recycling wind turbine blades into yummy gummy bears

The Global Wind Energy Council says that there will be a 53 percent increase in new installations in 2020. As long as half of a football field, the fiberglass blades can be as large as the entire field. The blades outlive the mechanical parts of the turbine. The concept of sustainable energy production is undermined by the fact that they are sent to landfills.

John Dorgan, a chemical engineer at Michigan State University, has come up with a new material that can be recycled into a new generation of turbine blades and materials for a variety of commercial applications. Car taillights, diapers, kitchen sinks, and even gummy bears are some of the items that are made of these. The American Chemical Society met in Chicago this week.

"It's almost like the replicator from Star" is how Dorgan describes his approach tomolecular flexibility. We did draw some inspiration from things like that, but we are a long way from the replicator idea.

Polyactide, or PLA, is one of Dorgan's favorites and was developed for making sustainable packaging. It is possible to make textiles and clothing using PLA. The Department of Energy funded project involves investigating how to make wind turbine blades that are more energy efficient. He wanted to know if PLA could be used as a binding material.

The Dorgan lab was able to make a syrupy resin by dissolving PLA in a synthetic monomer. The glass fibers were pulled through with vacuum pressure, which caused the fiberglass to hardened. The researchers will be able to make new panels for the next generation of wind turbine if they can recycle the panels. These materials can be used to do that. The mechanical properties can be sustained after several cycles.

The next step is to make some blades that are moderate in size. Dorgan is not yet ready to meet the needs of the wind power industry. It will take some time to come up with a large-scale production process for his lab-based process.

It's possible to use the resin for more than one application. If you take the material and shred it up, you will be able to make injection molded plastic. The engineered stone was used to make a full-sized kitchen sink.

He was able to modify these materials for more upcycle applications. He said that they could digest one of the components of thePLA using a simple base. Baking soda or baking powder can be found in the kitchen.

This allowed Dorgan to recover the polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) in the material, which is used to make windows and car parts. The PMMA can be converted into polymethacrylic acid by raising the temperature. Dorgan was able to purify the ammonia from the alkaline digestion for food grade applications. In the lab, he made gummy bears.

He ate those gummy bears. "A carbon atom derived from a plant, like corn or grass, is the same as a carbon atom that comes from a fossil fuel," said Dorgan. It's all part of the global carbon cycle, and we've shown that we can go from the field to plastic and back to food.