- HSI to propel sorting even further forward?
With handheld devices, between 40% and 100% of the precious metals content is lost during the recovery process because of mechanical pre-treatment, says Milan University’s Nicoletta Picone. She believes hyperspectral imaging, or HSI, may be an answer to this problem.
- iCycle: an innovative technology for recycling composite materials
Mechanical treatment of electronic waste leaves some 20-25% of shredder residues; these go to incineration plants even though they contain base, precious and high-tech metals. To recover these resources while also forming high-quality fuels, experts at Fraunhofer UMSICHT developed the iCycle.
- Recycled plastics: the analytical challenges
The focus on plastics recycling is acute given China’s ban on plastic waste imports and the strategy saying ‘all plastic packaging on the EU market will be recyclable by 2030’. With increasing demands for documentation relating to regenerate, sampling and analysis must be considered carefully.
- Circular concrete
The know-how is available for making affordable, high-grade concrete from old concrete. For turning it into a commercial success, the focus is now on organising end-of-life concrete flows, arranging a system for quality control and guarantees, and perhaps additive manufacturing (3D printing).