Strategic metal recycling: adaptive metallurgical processing infrastructure and technology are essential for a Circular Economy


Strategic metal recycling: adaptive metallurgical processing infrastructure and technology are essential for a Circular Economy

Reuter, M. A.; van Schaik, A.

Recycling forms the heart of the Circular Economy (CE) system. Ultimately all products will have to be recycled at their End-of-Life (EoL). Maximizing the recovery of materials and also especially strategic elements from EoL products requires a deep understanding of the fundamental limits and the dynamics of the evolving system, thus an adaptive processing and metallurgical infrastructure is critical to recover all metals and materials. Paramount is the quantification of the “mineralogy”, the complex and interlinked composition of products, to trace and quantify specifically all the losses of materials, metals, alloys, etc. due to thermodynamic and other non-linear interactions. We named this product centric recycling. The recycling potential and performance must be quantified and demonstrated for products, collection systems, waste separation and recovery technologies, and material supply. Emphasis is also placed on informing the consumer through iRE i.e. informing Resource Efficiency in an easy-to-understand way. System Integrated Metal Processing (SIMP) using big-data, multi-sensors, simulation models, metallurgy, etc. links all stakeholders through Circular Economy Engineering (CEE), an important enabler to maximize Resource Efficiency and thus iRE.

Keywords: EoL; CE; CEE

  • Annales des Mines - Responsiabilité & Environnement (2016)82, 62-66

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Permalink: https://www.hzdr.de/publications/Publ-24123
Publ.-Id: 24123