Founded in 2013, AEP Polymers is an innovation-based company focused on applied R&D in the field of bio-based building blocks, polymers and formulations for industrial applications. AEP’s researchers have a long-standing expertise in fibre reinforced composites, epoxy resins (composites, coatings and adhesives), polyurethanes (rigid and flexible PU foams, compact PU, coatings), elastomers and a wide variety of functionalised building blocks.

AEP generates added value by creating new substances and materials from renewable resources, e.g. plant-derived fatty acid oils and bio-aromatics, like cashew nutshell liquid (CNSL) and lignin. The product development approach combines phenols, carbohydrates and fatty acids to obtain materials that are technically and economically viable. Materials selection and synthetic approach are tailored on the specific project, to ensure industrial scalability and performance on par with commercially available products.

Beside collaborative R&D projects and consulting works, AEP’s business model encompasses licensing of the newly generated polymers. Several bio-based products and formulations are already being produced and commercialised by industrial partners.

Role in EOLIAN

Within EOLIAN, AEP takes care of optimising and upscaling the best performing vitrimer developed on the smaller scale. Starting from the most promising recipes, AEP will perform a progressive upscaling of vitrimers from 50-100 g to 3 kg/batch, testing their most relevant performance properties, like glass transition temperature, tensile and flexural properties, water uptake and chemical resistance. AEP will deliver samples to Norvento, using their technical feedback to optimise the vitrimer’s properties.
AEP is leader of Work Package 5: Upscale of vitrimer development and manufacturing of wind turbine blade demo.

Brunel University London (BUL), founded in 1966, is home to nearly 13,000 students from over 110 countries worldwide. Brunel offers a wide range of foundation, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

The university has been highly successful in building Brunel Composites Centre (BCC). BCC is an innovation centre that creates shared research and technology capabilities and sits between the knowledge base and industry, supporting industry partners to transfer academic research into industrial application. BCC’s principal mission is to establish a world-class research centre offering high-quality research. There are various ongoing research themes, including multiscale composite FEA, interfacial phenomena at the interface of composites to other materials, physicochemical processes studies including processing of composites, novel methods to join composites to other materials, development of sensors for structural health monitoring of composites, and embedding of smart structures in composites.

Role in EOLIAN

BUL will support the consortium in various stages of the project, including leading tasks to develop a multiscale model to represent the materials under study (Work Package 3). BUL will focus on creating a finite element (FE) material card to replicate the material under study by extrapolating data obtained from Entelea’s molecular-scale models. The card will then be used to ensure that the simulations accurately depict the actual material behaviour. BUL’s expertise in multiscale FE modelling will be highly beneficial in achieving this goal. BUL will also assist the consortium in various tasks in other work packages.

Entelea has a wide experience on different modelling and simulation methods across different length and time scales to i) capture and model the complex behaviour of materials, and ii) empower the design of novel materials with the best properties for new or existing products and systems. Our experts work with our customers to support their R&D activities through a suitable simulation strategy.

Entelea makes use of a bottom-up approach to model and simulate the behaviour/performance of different classes of materials (metals and alloys, inorganic, organic and polymeric composites). This approach offers a deep understanding of mechanisms and structure-property relationships to support the synergy of molecular simulation with the design of experiments (DOE).

The integration of materials modelling and digitalisation towards the development of innovative materials focusing on the sustainability of industry is Entelea’s primary goal. This goal complements our passion of using our advanced materials simulation methods and tools for solving real-life industrial problems.

Role in EOLIAN

Entelea will develop 3D molecular epoxy-vitrimer and epoxy-vitrimer/fibre interfacial models representative of the real under study system material to assess the effect of dynamic covalent bonding of epoxy hardener on thermomechanical, physicochemical and composite properties.

Together with Brunel, Entelea will be working on formulating a finite element (FE) material card based on the molecular modelling output to develop a multiscale modelling and characterisation protocol of different vitrimer chemistries.

Headquartered in Brussels, the European Composites Industry Association (EuCIA) represents European national composites associations and industry-specific sector groups at EU level. With the support of its members, EuCIA is actively contributing to building an economically and environmentally sustainable European composites industry. EuCIA closely monitors relevant standards and legislation, actively communicates the ways in which composites contribute to a more sustainable world, and promotes educational activities. Our initiatives aim to ensure the healthy growth and continued competitiveness of more than 10,000 companies and an estimated 200,000 employees involved in composites manufacturing across Europe.

EuCIA launches and supports initiatives to advance the sustainability and circularity of composite materials. We are actively working to overcome the current barriers to composites recycling and build the recycling supply chain, encouraging the collaboration of all stakeholders in a cross-sector approach. Our latest initiative the European Circular Composites Alliance (ECCA) unites more than 200 organisations from across Europe to advance circular solutions for the composites industry.

Role in EOLIAN

EuCIA is leader of Work Package 8: Dissemination and exploitation. Key objectives of this work package include the dissemination of project results to relevant stakeholders, the development of exploitation strategies for the results, and the development of new standards to facilitate their market acceptance. EuCIA will lead the tasks related to communication and dissemination activities, and end-user/stakeholder engagement. The stakeholder engagement activities will include the organisation of annual workshops for target audiences and the formation of an advisory board including experts and policymakers.

Read more in our Meet our partners article.

IRES is an independent Belgian consulting company (SME). IRES has a core business and wide experience in the fields of life cycle assessment (LCA) and life cycle costing (LCC), exposure and risk assessment (hazard and exposure scenarios), safe and sustainable by design (SSbD), data management plan (DMP), machine learning, quality assurance, and data analysis.

IRES is a data solution provider that invests in innovative machine learning based solutions. Data originating from different sources is utilised to unlock hidden values that lie between them. The company is currently expanding its expertise on material characterisation with the help of AI. More specifically, characterisation of SEM image purity of different types of materials via the help of computer vision and deep neural networks. We provide customised and tailored solutions on demand, often in tool form, successfully identify possible business risks and provide sustainable directions. For this, the whole life cycle of products is considered, through a holistic evaluation of social, environmental and economic aspects based on EU standards and regulations.

IRES in collaboration with external bodies and related initiatives, is part of new technological events, rising innovative technologies and strategic research trends. Through its international network, IRES supports the development of innovative technologies and the optimisation of products.

Role in EOLIAN

IRES is leading Work Package 7: Sustainability analysis and risk assessment, performing risk assessment for the identification of health and safety aspects, life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) including LCA, LCC and sLCA, to identify and analyse the environmental, economic and social ​impact of the EOLIAN manufacturing technologies.​​ In addition, IRES performs the safe and sustainable by design (SSbD) framework guidelines on the materials and chemicals.​ In the context of the life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA), IRES also accomplishes comparative impact assessment to evaluate the innovative technologies and the related strategies on the novel wind turbines and​ components.​​

Read more in our Meet the partners article.

Norvento is a Spanish company in the renewable energy sector with a comprehensive action capacity. It has been operating in the market for more than 40 years.

Norvento is present throughout the renewables value chain, covering both centralised generation, with 250 MW in large wind farms and around 1000 MW under development, and distributed generation, with the design and development of advanced energy solutions for the commercial and industrial (C&I) sector. Norvento’s technology division has developed a series of products to implement new energy models, focused on distributed energy, self-consumption, and renewable technologies, such as nED wind turbines, nGM electronic converters and nBESS electrical storage systems for renewable generation plants, distribution networks, electric car chargers, self-consumption and microgrids.

Norvento is working side by side with its clients to address their specific energy needs and promote their decarbonisation. In this line, it offers comprehensive energy consulting and engineering services and turnkey execution of renewable plants for self-consumption and development of microgrids, with the possibility for hybridisation of different technologies. It also provides consultancy and execution for grid connection studies for generation plants, comprehensive operation and maintenance of large renewable plants, and a generation Control Centre approved as a delegated office of REE.

Role in EOLIAN

Norvento will be responsible for designing, manufacturing and industrialising two prototypes of 12 m-long blades.

Norvento will also lead research on the mechanical properties of composite materials of bio-origin and basalt fibres, promoting the development of more efficient and sustainable blades. Likewise, the company will collaborate with other partners to evaluate the efficiency in the design and manufacturing of these prototypes, carrying out a detailed LCOE (Levelised Cost of Energy) analysis and a life cycle assessment (LCA) study. The company will also participate in durability and operability tests of subcomponents, in order to assess a precise structural monitoring of the blade.

Read more in our Meet the partners article.

Politecnico di Milano (PoliMi), founded in 1863, is an Italian university specialising in engineering, architecture, and design. It is known for its academic rigour and research contributions in these fields. The university encourages collaboration with industry and international entities, enhancing its educational and research programmes.

The Polymer Engineering Lab, part of the Department of Chemistry, Materials, and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta,” focuses on the study of structural properties of polymers and composites for highly demanding applications, particularly in terms of reliability, durability, and sustainability. The lab is equipped to analyse thermo-mechanical properties and prepare samples using various methods. It has expertise in structural polymers, composites, elastomers, foams, and adhesives.

The lab’s research is driven by practical applications, aiming to develop new materials and improve existing ones. This involves innovative processing, microstructure-property analysis, and numerical modelling. The lab collaborates with industry partners across transportation, electronics, and consumer goods sectors.

Equipped for both theoretical and experimental research, the lab has databases, simulation tools, and equipment for material preparation and analysis. Research topics include rheology, viscoelasticity, fracture behaviour, adhesion, tribology, process optimisation, numerical modelling, and dilatometry.

Role in EOLIAN

In EOLIAN, the PolyEngLab at Politecnico will be responsible not only for producing the next generation of sustainable composite materials for wind turbine blades, but also for optimising their recycling.

In terms of constituent materials, the traditional fibres and matrices, namely glass fibre and epoxy resin, will be substituted by basalt fibres and a vitrimeric polymer. PoliMi will define the best manufacturing practices and perform a full performance characterisation campaign.

In terms of recycling, PoliMi will devise the best recycling approaches to minimise the impact of the processes but also to maximise the quality of the outputs.

Read more in our Meet the partners article.

Proplast is a technology centre focused on research and innovation in the polymer and composites field and organised as a cluster (recognised at European level – ESCA silver labelled). Proplast promotes the competitiveness of industries, especially SMEs, supporting their research activities and fostering innovation and networking actions at national and international level by organising conferences, workshops, round tables and B2Bs. Proplast is recognised as the managing body of CGreen – Green chemistry and advanced materials in the Italian Piedmont region, and currently is part of the Sistema Poli Piemonte meta-cluster.

Proplast’s facilities include pilot lines of the main technologies for polymer production and processing, i.e. extrusion and compounding, injection moulding and thermoforming, fibre reinforced composite production.

Proplast has been involved in several collaborative research projects at European and national level (Piedmont region and national calls), and in different collaborative cluster projects at European level (ERASMUS+, Alpine Space, H2020, COSME, Interreg programme).

Role in EOLIAN

Proplast is the Coordinator of the EOLIAN project and the leader of Work Package 6: Chemical recycling of vitrimer-based composites. From the technical point of view, Proplast is in charge – together with Tekniker and PoliMi – of the development of vanillin-based vitrimer composites reinforced with basalt fibres, and their chemical recycling by dissolution. It is also involved in all the other EOLIAN work packages.

Read more in our Meet the partners article.

Tekniker is a research and development centre, legally constituted as a private non-for-profit foundation. Founded in 1981 with 287 researchers and a turnover of 24 M€ in 2023, Tekniker is specialised in advanced manufacturing, surface engineering, ICTs for manufacturing, and product engineering. It is currently a member of the Basque Research & Technological Alliance (BRTA).

Tekniker’s mission is to deliver growth and wellbeing to society at large via R&D&I and to further the competitiveness of the business fabric in a sustainable manner. In line with its missions and origins, Tekniker not only provides companies with technological support, development and transfer of technology but is also involved in generating new business initiatives which are usually technological and, often, ‘spin offs’ of the centre itself.

Role in EOLIAN

In the EOLIAN project, Tekniker is the leader of Work Package 2 focused on the development and characterisation of different types of bisphenol A free epoxy systems containing dynamic covalent bonds, which give them properties such as reshapeability/reprocessability, repairability, and recyclability. In cooperation with Politecnico di Milano and Proplast, vanillin-based vitrimer composites reinforced with basalt fibres will be developed and their chemical recycling through dissolution will also be studied.

Tekniker also leads Work Package 4, concerning the successful integration of sensors (corrosion and ice detectors) and actuators (heaters) into the composite material through an in-mould electronics approach​.

Read more in our Meet the partners article.

Established in 1993, Zorlu Enerji is an international integrated energy company based on Turkey which has more than 30 years of experience in electricity generation and distribution from renewable energy sources, including geothermal power, solar power, wind power, and hydro power. Zorlu Enerji’s total installed capacity is 991 MW. There are 4 geothermal powerplants, 7 hydroelectric power plants, 2 wind farms and 1 solar power plant. Beside these areas, with its ZES brand, the company aims to accelerate popularisation of electric vehicles and to facilitate the journeys of electric vehicle owners in Turkey with several rapid charging stations commissioned in city roads and highways.

Zorlu Enerji has been carrying out R&D projects since 2018 and now it has 10 ongoing funded projects (2 Horizon2020, 5 Horizon Europe, 1 EraNet, 1 Eurogia, 1 TENMAK) and 5 completed projects (1 EraNet-Act, 1 Eurogia2020, 1 ITEA3 and 2 Horizon2020) in cooperation with more than 100 partners from 20 different countries. Digitalisation, O&M optimisation, predictive and preventive maintenance, green hydrogen, lithium extraction, energy storage technologies and CCUS (carbon capture, utilisation, and storage) could be some examples for research areas of R&D projects.

Role in EOLIAN

Zorlu Enerji is leading the Exploitation activities – IP management task. It is involved in the project with the experience gained from its role as a wind energy producer, investor, and operator. Zorlu Enerji will provide support to all intellectual property owners as well as potential partners to establish end-to-end supply/value chains and to provide successful technology and knowledge transfer for rapid market acceptance.

Read more in our Meet the partners article.