Investment Expansion Of Adhesive Manufacturers Triggered By Expansion Of Fan Blades

Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) recently released Global

Installed data show that in 2013, the cumulative installed capacity of the global wind power reached 318.137GW, and the global wind power generation increased by 23%. GWEC also predicted that the cumulative installed capacity of wind power in China is expected to reach 200GW in 2020.

In the face of the huge market prospect, the investment of wind energy development and utilization in the world is growing continuously, the scale of the corresponding market is expanding rapidly, and the large fan blades are developing smoothly.

At present, the fan blades in the global market are mostly made by assembling, and the adhesive additives used together are the important structural materials of blades.

It is understood that every production of a leaf is to use 50kg~300kg adhesive, that is to say, the development of wind turbine blades also creates huge business opportunities for adhesive manufacturers, and quickly set off a "investment fever" in the industry.

At present, the main adhesives for wind power blades in the market are epoxy adhesive, polyurethane adhesive and modified acrylate adhesive.

Compared with other types of adhesives, epoxy adhesive has the advantages of high adhesive strength, small curing shrinkage and easy modification.

At the same time, many varieties of epoxy resin, curing agent and modifier can be designed through reasonable and ingenious formula, so that the adhesive has the required technology and has the required performance.

Epoxy adhesive is also the first choice for most wind turbine manufacturers because of its excellent performance and low cost advantages.

Today, some large multinational companies have actively developed and developed wind turbine blade adhesives. Typical representatives include Hexion, Hunstman, DOW, BASF, Ashland and so on.

At present, the large leaf manufacturers at home and abroad basically use the epoxy resin products of American Hexion company.

Hexion company's L135/K2-K4 series epoxy adhesive is contained.

The solventless adhesive system has low heat release, hot thixotropy and excellent gap filling performance. The maximum filling gap can reach 5 cm.

Because it can effectively improve the efficiency and performance of wind turbine blades, the product has been widely recognized by wind turbine manufacturers.

The MA560 and MA590 adhesive developed by Hunstman is an acrylic adhesive, which can make FRP composite material have better peel and fatigue resistance, and can achieve rapid curing at room temperature, greatly reducing production costs and improving production efficiency.

But its development cost is higher than the L135/K2-K4 series of Hexion company.

The Araldite adhesive of BASF group is made up of epoxy and polyurethane. It has the physical and mechanical characteristics of non collapse, easy pumping and rapid solidification at low temperature, and is suitable for the application of wind turbine blades.

Ashland's ENGUARDBP6200 is a vinyl based adhesive for wind turbine blades. The PLIOGRIP1000 introduced in the same period is a two-component, toughening acrylic adhesive.

However, at present, domestic adhesives can not completely meet the technological requirements of wind turbine blades. There are mainly problems such as low fracture strength and elongation, poor toughness and poor fatigue resistance. The result is that cracks are easily formed in the operation of blades, and their service life is greatly reduced.

In addition, domestic leaf manufacturers mainly rely on imports for a long time, not only the price is high, but the cost of leaf production is high, and it also seriously restricts the upgrading of the core competitiveness of China's wind turbine blade manufacturing industry.

Therefore, China should increase investment and R & D efforts and break through key technologies, so that domestic wind turbine producers will substantially reduce production costs and promote the healthy and rapid development of China's wind power industry.

However, it is worth mentioning that the special epoxy adhesive WD3135 for wind blades developed by Shanghai Kangda Chemical Co., Ltd. is a kind of double component, high thixotropy, high toughness epoxy adhesive, suitable for the bonding process of blade and passed.

GL demonstrates that for the first time, it can replace imported adhesives to some extent, and has been applied in some wind turbine blade manufacturers.