Rejuvenation of Recyclable Wind Turbine Blades

Project Description:

This PhD scholarship is offered by the EPSRC CDT in Offshore Wind Energy Sustainability and Resilience; a partnership between the Universities of Durham, Hull, Loughborough and Sheffield. The successful applicant will undertake six-month of training with the rest of the CDT cohort at the University of Hull before continuing their PhD research at the University of Sheffield.

While the wind energy industry is a green success story in the field of renewable energy, end-of-life solutions, especially for composite blades with a limited lifespan, remain a challenge. Siemens Gamesa and Aditya Birla have successfully developed full scale manufacturing of recyclable wind turbine blades, in a project called RecyclableBlade. Using a mild solvent (acetic acid), they have proven the economic viability of introducing recyclability in the wind energy value chain, while reducing CO2 emissions by 28%.   

While the viability of full-scale wind turbine blades made with Recyclamine® has been demonstrated, the key innovation of this project lies in exploring a fundamentally different application of this material system: the use of localised heating to rejuvenate and extend the lifespan of recyclable blades already in service. The core knowledge gap relates to how Recyclamine®-based systems respond to controlled, spatially confined thermal stimuli. Recyclamine® is known for its cleavable bonds that enable chemical recycling, but some of its variants also demonstrate topological rearrangement above certain threshold temperatures, akin to thermoplastics. This vitrimeric behaviour has only recently been identified and remains underexplored in the context of structural composites like wind blades.  

The potential of these new findings will be investigated at small scale with different Recyclamine® variants at coupon level first, followed by manufacturing and fatigue testing of small-scale wind turbine blades or demonstrator segments before and after rejuvenation. The coupling of recycling/re-use solutions with the potential of extending the blade lifespan, with clear pathway to impact at scale will prove to be very beneficial to the industry.

Training and development

You will benefit from a taught programme, giving you a broad understanding of the breadth and depth of current and emerging offshore wind sector needs. This begins with an intensive six-month programme at the University of Hull for the new student intake, drawing on the expertise and facilities of all four academic partners. It is supplemented by Continuing Professional Development (CPD), which is embedded throughout your 4-year research scholarship.

You will receive training in composite manufacturing as well as mechanical and physical testing equipment inductions.

Entry requirements

If you have received a First-class Honours degree, or a 2:1 Honours degree and a Masters, or a Distinction at Masters level with any undergraduate degree (or the international equivalents) in Chemistry or Engineering, we would like to hear from you. A material, mechanical or chemistry engineering background is essential. Mechanical testing and polymer chemistry experience is desired.

If your first language is not English, or you require Tier 4 student visa to study, you will be required to provide evidence of your English language proficiency level that meets the requirements of the Aura CDT’s academic partners. This course requires academic IELTS 7.0 overall, with no less than 6.0 in each skill.

If you have any queries about this project, please contact Dr Colin Robert: c.robert@sheffield.ac.uk 

You may also address queries about the CDT to auracdt@hull.ac.uk.

Watch our short video to hear from Aura CDT students, academics and industry partners:

Funding

The Offshore Wind CDT is funded by the EPSRC, allowing us to provide scholarships that cover fees plus a stipend set at the UKRI nationally agreed rates. These are currently £20,780 per annum at 2025/26 rates and will increase in line with the EPSRC guidelines for the subsequent years (subject to progress).

Eligibility

Research Council funding for postgraduate research has residence requirements. Our CDT scholarships are available to Home (UK) Students. To be considered a Home student, and therefore eligible for a full award, a student must have no restrictions on how long they can stay in the UK and have been ordinarily resident in the UK for at least 3 years prior to the start of the scholarship (with some further constraint regarding residence for education). For full eligibility information, please refer to the EPSRC website.

We also allocate a number of scholarships for International Students per cohort.

Guaranteed Interview Scheme

The CDT is committed to generating a diverse and inclusive training programme and is looking to attract applicants from all backgrounds. We offer a Guaranteed Interview Scheme for home fee status candidates who identify as Black or Black mixed or Asian or Asian mixed if they meet the programme entry requirements. This positive action is to support recruitment of these under-represented ethnic groups to our programme and is an opt in process.

Find out more

How to apply

Applications are open until 5 January 2026.

Please note, you may only apply for ONE project offered through the EPSRC CDT in Offshore Wind Energy Sustainability and Resilience.

Please ensure that you familiarise yourself with the Aura CDT website before you apply to give you a good understanding of what a CDT is, our CDT’s research focus and the training and continuing professional development programme that runs alongside the CDT. The Frequently asked questions page and Candidate resources page are essential reading prior to applying.

Applications to this project are made via the University of Sheffield admissions system. If you have not applied to the University of Sheffield before, you will need to set up an account to enable you to track the progress of your application and upload supporting documents.

As part of the recruitment process, we ask that you submit a short film of you delivering a presentation, of up to 5 minutes in length, on “How do your experiences and qualities provide a background to contribute to research and innovation for the project you have applied for”.

You will be assessed on the content of your presentation, not your film editing skills, but please be mindful of filming in an appropriate, quiet location. Please film the presentation in whatever way you feel most comfortable with. For example, it could be a slide presentation with voice over, or you may wish to present simply talking to the camera.  Please use the tools and technology that are accessible to you and that you feel comfortable with e.g. your mobile phone, or the built-in ‘Record Slide Show’ on Keynote (macOS, iOS, iPadOS) or Powerpoint etc.

We also ask that you complete a Supplementary Application Form. This includes space for you to provide a link where the shortlisting panel may view your film.

Follow this link to apply for CDT projects at the University of Sheffield: https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/postgraduate/phd/apply/applying

After filling in your personal details, please select ‘Doctoral Training Course’ as the qualification you are applying for. You should then select ‘AURA II CDT’ for the specific doctoral training course and choose ‘PhD’. You can apply for one project only.

With your application, you need to upload copies of the following supporting evidence:

• Complete transcripts (and final degree certificate(s) where possible). If your qualification documents are not in English, you will need to supply copies of your original language documents as well as their official translation into English.
• Your Curriculum Vitae (CV).
• A completed Supplementary Application Form (upload when asked for your Supporting Statement).

Uploading the form

When you have completed the form, please save it as a pdf format and labelled as follows:

Last name_first name PhD application form

Upload the form as part of your application documents through the University of Sheffield student application portal, when asked to add your Supporting Statement. The Form replaces the Supporting Statement and so you do not need to complete the Supporting Statement section. Please do not send your form directly to the Offshore Wind CDT.

Interviews

First-round interviews will be held online during early to mid-February 2026. The interview panel will comprise the project supervisory team members from the host university where the project is based, plus a representative of the CDT.  Where the project involves external supervisors from university partners or industry sponsors then representatives from these partners may form part of the interview panel and your application documents will be shared with them (with the guaranteed interview scheme section of the supplementary application form removed).

If you are successful, you will progress to a second interview towards the end of February 2026. This will be with key academics from the CDT from across our four partner institutions (Durham University, University of Hull, Loughborough University, University of Sheffield) and your application documents will be shared with them (with the guaranteed interview scheme section removed from the supplementary application form).

If you have any queries about this project, please contact Dr Colin Robert: c.robert@sheffield.ac.uk 

You may also address queries about the CDT to auracdt@hull.ac.uk.

References & Further Reading 

https://www.sandia.gov/app/uploads/sites/273/2022/11/SGRE_RecyclableBlade_Sandia2022_LHv1.pdf

https://www.recyclamine.com/

https://www.abg-am.com/portfolio/chemistry/recyclamine-technology/F008?tab=1 

https://www.siemensgamesa.com/global/en/home/explore/journal/recyclable-blade.html 

 https://interregtiger.com/paimpol-brehat-tidal-test-site-improving-the-quality-of-tidal-turbine-blades/