Production, Properties, and Applications of Surface‐Crusted Lightweight Metals in Wind Turbines

After many years of wind energy use, the gradual decommissioning of numerous wind farms has highlighted issues related to current applied materials, theirapplication, and recycling. The paper focuses on existing technologies (Alporas, Alulight, and Metcomb) for producing aluminum cellular materials with regard to their use in the manufacturing of small wind turbine blades. Special attention is also given to comparing the advantages and disadvantages of materials from the perspective of production and subsequent recycling. The samples were produced using the Alulight method, and tensile stress was tested. Our study shows that Alulight and Metcomb are more suitable from a production perspective, but in terms of ecology, they increase the carbon footprint during recycling. As small wind turbines are expected to be deployed on a larger scale in the future, the appropriate selection and use of materials can help prevent problems similar to those currently encountered with large wind farms.