Materials Cycling

Catalog description

This class will explore the economic and environmental incentives for recycling and resource recovery. The focus will be on end-of-life fate of materials (including plastics, metals, glass, and e-waste) while setting these within the context of overall ecosystem flows (carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen cycles, waste water, etc.). Technologies for the upgrading of secondary material streams will be studied including: physical and physico-chemical (beneficiation, electrostatic and magnetic separation), hydrometallurgical (selective precipitation, leaching, ion exchange), biotechnological (biosorption, sulfate reduction),and pyrometallurgical (filtration and fluxing). Production issues (product quality, remelt thermodynamics, exergy accounting, etc.) within the secondary industry will be explored with an emphasis on removing barriers to increased usage of scrap. Efforts for enhanced collection efforts and motivation of consumer and firm participation will also be covered (municipal collection fees, corporate take-back initiatives, legislation such as the WEEE directive, state deposits, etc.)