Protecting wind-turbine leading edges with nanoengineered superhydrophobic urethane coatings

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Wind energy is a vital component in meeting EU’s the Strategic Energy Technology (SET) plan and Europe’s ambition to become number one producer of renewables. Reducing operation and maintenance (O&M) costs are of paramount importance. The most serious problem affecting the wind industry is water erosion of the turbine blades. The blade leading edges are most susceptible, particularly in offshore turbines that are often battered by the water hammering mechanism of rain and seawater splash impact, exposure to the solar (UV) radiation and harsh fluctuations in temperature which lead to accretion of dirt, contaminants and ice. Progressive increase in the size of the blades has increased tip-speed of the blades exacerbating these erosion issues and increasing O&M costs for wind farms. Therefore, robust and environment friendly surface treatment solutions are urgently required to solve this most significant problem in an industry critical for Europe to meet its energy security and sustainability goals. Through PI’s ERC Grant (NICEDROPS), a robust and flexible nanoengineered coating formulation was developed. These coatings are applied through scalable approaches. They combine flexibility and superhydrophobicity to achieve exceptional liquid impalement resistance without compromising the mechanical robustness; the breakthrough published as a cover article in Nature Materials. In SUNCOAT we will advance this by one more crucial step – by introducing water based coatings formulations, to make our solution environment friendly and VOC-free. The technology is an innovative solution to the wind energy industry’s number one problem and it can deploy on existing infrastructure during routine maintenance cycles as well as in-factory at point of manufacture. Given the expense of blade replacement, and lifetime costs of efficiency losses, this is a product that can command significant margins while still offering a cost-effective solution to the industry.