The QWERTY/EE concept, Quantifying Recyclability and Eco-Efficiency for End-of-Life Treatment of Consumer Electronic Products

The QWERTY/EE concept addresses recyclability and eco-efficiency of take-back and recycling of consumer electronic products, a topic currently receiving large international attention. Through the environmental part of the concept an alternative for usual weight based recycling percentages is presented. In addition, economic effects of take-back...

Closing the clay brick cycle

Quality improvement of granular secondary raw building materials by separation and cleansing techniques

Contaminated granular wastes are potentially reusable because they have similar physical and chemical properties as primary raw building materials. From environmental aspects, the reuse must not result in polluting the soil, groundwater and surface water. Therefore the leaching values of inorganic components such as heavy metals and the...

The ecology of metals

Investigation of surface layer on rolled recycled AA5050 in relation to Filiform Corrosion

The presence of a heavily deformed surface layer (a few microns thick) on rolled aluminium alloy is understood to be one of the main reasons contributing to the Filiform Corrosion (FFC) susceptibility of the alloy. The surface layer is formed during the thermo-mechanical processing of the sheet metal, in the rolling mills. The surface layer...

Performance Enhancement of Abrasive Waterjet Cutting

Abrasive Waterjet (AWJ) Machining is a recent non-traditional machining process. This technology is widely used in industry for cutting difficult-to-machine-materials, milling slots, polishing hard materials etc. AWJ machining has many advantages, e.g. it can cut net-shape parts, no heat is generated during the cutting process, it is...

Recycling of Glass Fibre Reinforced Aluminium Laminates and Silicon Removal from Aerospace Al Alloy

Aerospace aluminium alloys (7xxx and 2xxx series Al alloy) is one of the important Al alloys in our life. The recycling of aerospace Al alloy plays a significant role in sustainable development of Al industry. The fibre reinforced metal laminates GLARE including 67 wt.% 2024 Al alloy was used as upper fuselage in Airbus A380, but the solution...

Ultrasound imaging for quantitative evaluation of magnetic density separation

This thesis is dedicated to an investigation of the potential and technological possibilities of an inline ultrasound system as a quality control system for wet recycling of solid waste. The main targeted recycling technology is magnetic density separation (MDS), a novel technique that was investigated and technologically matured in a project...

E-waste: Collect more, treat better; Tracking take-back system performance for eco-efficient electronics recycling

This dissertation establishes a methodology for evaluating the performance of take-back and treatment systems for end-oflife electronics (e-waste). First, a comprehensive classification is developed to fully understand the complex characteristics of e-waste. A multivariate model is then created to quantify e-waste generation for mapping e-waste...

Magnetic Density Separation of Polyolefin Wastes

Polymer recycling has significantly positive impacts on the environment, economics and society. Using recycled polymer to replace virgins reduces the growing amount of post-consumer polymer wastes, decreases the demand for fossil fuel and creates local jobs. As the most used polymer types, polyolefins certainly have attracted attention of...

A new view on the hydrological cycle over continents

Where does precipitation come from? It is not easy to answer this question because of the complex and energy-intensive processes that bring moisture to a certain location and cause moisture to precipitate highly heterogeneously in space and variable over time. Part of the precipitation comes from so-called “moisture recycling”, which is moisture...

Hot Mix Asphalt Recycling: Practices and Principles

Hot mix asphalt recycling has become common practice all over the world since the 1970s because of the crisis in oil prices. In the Netherlands, hot recycling has advanced to such an extent that in most of the mixtures more than 50% of reclaimed asphalt (RA) is allowed. These mixtures with such a high RA content are produced in a batch plant to...

Improving the competitiveness of green ship recycling

The end of life of a ship is determined by its owner on the basis of various commercial and technical factors. Once decided to scrap a ship, almost all end-of-life (EOL) ships are sold to recycling yards for dismantling; except for a few which are converted into museums, hotels, storage, and artificial reefs. As the decision is a commercial one,...

Root for rain: Towards understanding land-use change impacts on the water cycle

We live today on a human-dominated planet under unprecedented pressure on both land and water. The water cycle is intrinsically linked to vegetation and land use, and anticipating the consequences of simultaneous changes in land and water systems requires a thorough understanding of their interactions. This thesis aims to advance our knowledge...

Design for Recycling of Electronic Products: How to bridge the gap between design methods and recycling practices

The topic of this thesis is design for recycling (DfR) of electronic products. More than ever before, electronic products are intruding into our everyday life, both in the household and in industry, resulting in increasing numbers of electronic products ending up in waste streams (also known as electronic waste, or e-waste). Electronic products...

Sensor-based quality inspection of secondary resources: Laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

The quality control of materials from waste is an important step for acceptance in new high-quality products. Given the large volumes and complexity of waste streams, this requires advanced sensor technology such as the Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) investigated in this thesis. Recyclers often rely solely on manual sorting and...

From surgical waste to medical products

Hospital waste has a major impact on the environment. The worldwide growth of hospital waste is the result of the growing world population and the increase in use of disposables. A circular healthcare economy may contribute to the reduction of hospital waste. The circular economy is a system in which waste is prevented and where waste is reused....

Anatomy of cast glass: The effect of casting parameters on the meso-level structure and macro-level structural performance of cast glass components

Cast glass has great application potential in the architectural realm, yet, despite its possibilities and attractiveness, designers, engineers and developers are, from an early design stage, hesitant to employ it; the limited available and craft-based manufacturing facilities, the questionable quality of the product, the missing engineering data...