Life-Cycle Environmental Assessment and Comparative Recycling Pathways of Wind Turbine Blades: Toward Circular Design and Sustainable Decommissioning

Abstract

Wind energy is vital to achieving carbon neutrality, yet the growing retirement of wind turbine blades poses emerging environmental challenges. This study establishes a localized life-cycle assessment (LCA) framework to quantify the environmental impacts of wind turbine blades across four stages — manufacturing, transportation, operation, and end-of-life management. Eight impact categories, including global warming, particulate matter formation, eutrophication, and ecotoxicity, were evaluated, and three recycling pathways — mechanical, pyrolysis, and chemical — were compared. Results show a pronounced “front-end concentration” pattern, where environmental burdens are predominantly aggregated in the upstream manufacturing stage, it dominates over 95% of total impacts in all categories, mainly due to the production of glass and carbon fibers with high embodied energy and emissions. Among recycling routes, mechanical recycling exhibits the lowest overall environmental burden, while chemical recycling shows higher energy use and toxicity potential. The findings highlight that decarbonizing the manufacturing process and advancing recyclable composite materials are essential to improving the sustainability of wind turbine blades. The proposed framework provides scientific support for circular design and policy formulation under China’s dual-carbon goals.

Keywords: circular design, environmental impact analysis, life-cycle assessment, recycling pathways, wind turbine blades