RECYCLING OF END-OF-LIFE PRODUCTS AND MATERIALS, WITH A FOCUS ON PRODUCT DESIGN: A REVIEW
Metals play a pivotal role in society as their properties impart unique functionality to engineered structures and consumer products. Furthermore, metals are theoretically infinitely recyclable. However, among others, the functionality and design of a consumer product can complicate recycling due to its ever more complex structure, which ultimately produce impure recyclates and hence necessitate dilution by the use of virgin pure metal. Metallurgical smelting ingenuity, good technology and intelligent use of thermodynamics and transfer processes gets metallurgists a far way down the path of creating high recycling rates from a large range of primary concentrates and recyclates; it is, however, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics that governs the limitations of recovering all elements, which is directly reflected in the economics of the various possible processing routes. A key issue is the creation of optimal industrial ecological systems that maximize the recovery of materials from ores and recyclates within the boundaries of thermodynamics, technology and economics. The excellent theoretical and applied engineering toolboxes of process engineering as well often good understanding of economic and technological constraints make metallurgists an important player in optimizing “closure of material cycles within the Web of Materials. This paper will discuss some of the tools, issues and provide a review of recycling technology and design for “sustainability and its thermodynamic and first principles basis. It will be shown how these tools can be applied to cases such as E-waste recycling, design for sustainability of cars and water. The importance of creating, managing and optimizing the recycling and waste processing infrastructure in regions such as the EU will be discussed, ensuring that the materials that flow into a region can be recovered e.g. rare earths, indium, precious and platinum group metals. This renders regions less dependent on primary resources. In addition, harmonizing legislation with this discussed fundamental basis will help to facilitate these objectives and hence reach the thermodynamic limits of recovery from end-of-life goods and waste materials.
Design for Sustainability Metallurgy Recycling Waste Processing End-of-Life Products
M.A. REUTER A. van SCHAIK
Ausmelt Ltd., 12 Kitchen Road, 3175 Dandenong, Australia (now part of Outotec MARAS, The Hague, The Netherlands
国际会议
北京
英文
694-721
2010-05-17（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）