Reinforcing Poly(Vinyl Chloride) and Its Wood–Plastic Composites With Wind Turbine Blade Waste

ABSTRACT With the rapid development of the wind power industry, the efficient recycling of decommissioned wind turbine blades has become an urgent environmental challenge. In this study, mechanically crushed wind turbine blade waste (WTBW) is used as a filler in poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) and its wood–plastic composites (WPC). Specifically, WTBW powders with different sizes are obtained by simply crushing and sieving. The effects of WTBW size, content, residual epoxy resin, and surface modification on the composites' properties are investigated. After incorporating 10% WTBW of 100–200 mesh, the tensile strength and Young's modulus of the PVC composite increase by 4.0% and 25.2%, compared with neat PVC. At a loading of 15%, the flexural strength and flexural modulus show the maximum increases of 12.3% and 16.7%. The residual epoxy resin on the glass fiber surface serves as an interfacial transition layer between WTBW and PVC, helping to improve the interfacial bonding. Furthermore, by filling 20% WTBW into the PVC based WPC, the tensile strength, Young's modulus, flexural strength, flexural modulus, and wear resistance of the composite increase by 17.6%, 333.1%, 57.3%, 117.2%, and 31.3%, respectively, compared with neat WPC. This study provides a new route for the high‐value recycling of WTBW.