Objectives of the commitment
Reclaim has the following aims:
1. Develop, test end enhance field equipments used in recycling operations to maximize the screening and recovery rate of high value materials and critical raw materials from urban landfills;
2. Test and adapt procedures for intervention in old domestic urban landfills for collection of metals and critical raw materials;
3. Design and test a system that, taking in consideration landfill properties, will collect and integrate primary and existing data, setting a standard procedure for the evaluation of the impact of a scavenging intervention, crossing the economical, environmental and technical dimensions. This system will lay down appropriate control parameters for possible types of intervention;
4. Contribute to reduce the EU dependency on imports of critical raw materials;
5. Contribute to safe closure and long term maintenance of urban landfills.
Description of the activities
Landfill mining can be conducted in different ways, depending on intrinsic and extrinsic parameters. As intrinsic parameters size, location, age, type, composition and available documentation of a landfill are usually referred. These parameters depend on the specificity of each landfill and, for this reason, site and deposited material characterizations are the most studied main topics within landfill mining. Regarding extrinsic parameters, the most commonly referred parameters are the availability of suitable technologies and societal and economic boundary conditions.
Efforts to recover metals from landfills are normally based on a combination of shredding techniques, followed by sieving. This procedure leaves on site the fine fraction, which is discarded together with the so-called âinertâ fraction. But recent tests and studies made by recycling companies specialised in recovering metals and other valuable materials from urban bottom ash shows that the fine fraction, especially below 10mm, has the highest concentration of metals and other valuable materials. This fact highlights that landfill mining efforts made so far are most probably leaving on site high value resources in the fine fraction.
Having this in consideration, and despite the importance of intrinsic parameters to landfill mining, which will be careful taken into account, Reclaim will mainly focus on extrinsic parameters, namely on the identification, onsite test and improvement of existing processing technologies.
Reclaim will combine data gathering on intrinsic parameters (including geochemical sampling and field instrumentation) of an urban landfill with data from field (mining) operation using equipments especially designed/adapted for the recovery of fines. It is expected that presumably higher costs of onsite operation to recover fines will be compensated by higher metals and other valuable materials concentrations and savings in handling. All data on operations, cost efficiency and materials collected will be combined to assess the economic performance of Reclaim, allowing the replication of methodologies developed in other landfills.
Alongside with economic feasibility, a systematic approach based on life cycle will address the positive and negative environmental impacts of landfill mining operations on the local, regional and global scales, altogether with implications in the design of raw materials supply policies at the European level. The waste-to-material concept will be considered to identify maximum environmental performance and profitability.
The integrated analysis of technical, economic and environmental dimensions in Reclaim, using a combination of performance parameters, will facilitate landfill mining management. This is an important advance, as any literature review shows: the lack of integration is the most coherent assumption on landfill mining among the scientific community, highlighted by the unanimous conclusion that each landfill is a unique case.
Reclaim brings a step forward on landfill mining by developing specific equipment and methodologies (landfill sampling, field measurement devices, processing technologies, data collection and management tools), exploring its synergies and validating the concept developed using detailed data collection from field tests.
Description of the expected impacts
Reclaim will enhance available landfill mining technologies through an integrated approach that combines materials identification, collection, processing and transformation, focusing on end-of-life management to maximize the use of materials collected for the production of goods. This will increase the operational, economical and environmental performance of landfill mining. Increasing the economic competitiveness of landfill mining will boost this activity, minimising the need of metals from primary sources and reducing Europeâs external dependency on raw materials, with a long-term impact on Europe's raw materials policies. In addition, this will facilitate the restoration (in some cases complete) of existing landfills, with important economic and social benefits.
Coordinating organisation & role
Name of the coordinating organisation: AMBIGROUP RECICLAGEM, S.A.Country: PortugalEntity profile: Private sector - SMERole within the commitment:
Coordinator, in charge of onsite landfill mining testing and feasibility analysis of best processing methods and techniques.
Other partners
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Angewandten Forschung e.V.
Name of the organisation: Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Angewandten Forschung e.V. Country: Germany Entity profile: Governmental/public body
Role within the commitment: Fraunhofer will lead the CFRP and GFRP recycling research.
Fraunhofer will perform corrosion tests on the developed materials.
Fraunhofer will work with CIDAUT on the implementation, validation and refinement of LCCA tools for the project. Fraunhofer is the Quality Manager of the Consortium and will oversee deliverables and general reporting are produced with the best possible quality following agreed review standards.
Fundacion Cidaut
Name of the organisation: Fundacion Cidaut Country: Spain Entity profile:
Role within the commitment: CIDAUT will lead the research activities on materials recycling and compounding, implementing lab scale demonstrators of each process at its premises and, later, supporting end-users upscale the processes.
CIDAUT will perform mechanical tests, microstructural analyses, injection moulding capability studies on the developed materails, and will work with Fraunhofer on the implementation, validation and refinement of LCCA tools for the project.
RWTH Aachen University (Institute of plastic processing (IKV)
Name of the organisation: RWTH Aachen University (Institute of plastic processing (IKV) Country: Germany Entity profile: Governmental/public body
Role within the commitment: RWTH will implement the novel 3D Generative Preforming process (3D Fibre Spraying) that enables to create high-value long fibre-reinforced 3D preforms for thermoplastic and thermoset composites at low process costs (different kinds of yarn as a raw material, low tooling costs due to low cavity pressures). This cost effective technology allows to align the sprayed fibres in order to produce high-performance, engineered anisotropic products.
Universita' di Cagliari
Name of the organisation: Universita' di Cagliari Country: Italy Entity profile:
Role within the commitment: University of Cagliari is one of the leading European organization in the resin design and coupling with thermoplastic and thermose materials. University of Cagliari will support in the definition of the composite materials, both from CFRP/GFRP, ABS and Rare Earth composite material.
Relight
Name of the organisation: Relight Country: Italy Entity profile: Private sector - SME
Role within the commitment: RELIGHT will work with ITRB to provide the research partners with residues for the recycled ABS supply and the REE recovery processes, including their HydroWEEE process as part of the processes to be studied and analyzed.
Piaggio Aerospace
Name of the organisation: Piaggio Aerospace Country: Italy Entity profile: Private sector - large company
Role within the commitment: Piaggio Aerospace is one of the project End Users (Aeronautics Industry): as such it will provide requirements and further applications that could be developed with the Consortium Materials. Piaggio will assist in the compounds selection, provide Fraunhofer with specific corrosion requirements on business jet size aircraft, and will assess that the developed materials performance fits the selected applications desired improvements.
Blackshape Aircrafts
Name of the organisation: Blackshape Aircrafts Country: Italy Entity profile: Private sector - SME
Role within the commitment: Blackshape Aircrafts is one of the project End Users (Aeronautics Industry): as such it will provide requirements and further applications that could be developed with the Consortium Materials. Blackshape will support to fulfill the requirements of the aeronautics industry on ultra light jet, light jet and trainer for Syllabus, and will assess that the developed alloys performance fits the selected applications desired improvements.
KU Leuven
Name of the organisation: KU Leuven Country: Belgium Entity profile: Academia
Role within the commitment: KUL will collaborate on the balance problem studies and will lead the rare earth recovery research with the solvometallurgical and ionometallurgical processes.
KUL will also contribute to the final compounding selection.
KUL is the Dissemination Manager of the project, promoting that all partners are active on the project Dissemination.
FIDAMC
Name of the organisation: FIDAMC Country: Spain Entity profile: Governmental/public body
Role within the commitment: FIDAMC is going to lead the Work Package on Compression Moulding with CFRP-enhanced materials. As part of the AIRBUS Group, FIDAMC will also be able to provide the input material.
FIDAMC successfully developed a 3D Printer of own design to serve the Aerospace Industry and will be supporting Smart Lab 3D Industries in its 3D printer design.
COMPOSITE INNOVATION CENTER
Name of the organisation: COMPOSITE INNOVATION CENTER Country: Canada Entity profile: Governmental/public body
Role within the commitment: Composite Innovation Center is one of the world leading organization in the field of Composite materials, both from carbon fiber and vegetal-based fibers.
Composite Innovation center has successfully implemented, at lab-scale, recycling processes for CFRP and GFRP.
Existing EU Contribution: No
Period to implement the commitment: from 02-01-2018 to 30-06-2020