RFID-based material passport system in a recycled concrete circular chain

The construction industry urgently requires a resilient information system for effective coordination of data transmission among various stakeholders, including both the public and private sectors. Such an advanced digital solution would not only enhance transparency along the value chain but also improve both the quality of and confidence in...

Life cycle assessment of material footprint in recycling: A case of concrete recycling

Meeting the current demand for concrete requires not only mining tons of gravel and sand, but also burning large amounts of fossil fuel resources in cement kilning. Consequently, concrete recycling is crucial to achieving a material-efficient society, especially with the application of various categories of concrete and the goal of phasing...

Circularity in Practice: Review of Main Current Approaches and Strategic Propositions for an Efficient Circular Economy of Materials

This paper aims to summarize, propose, and discuss existing or emerging strategies to shift towards a circular economy of materials. To clarify the landscape of existing circular practices, a new spectrum is proposed, from product-based strategies, where entire products go through several life cycles without being reprocessed, to material-based...

Comprehensive study on the most sustainable concrete design made of recycled concrete, glass and mineral wool from C&D wastes

This study focuses on formulating the most sustainable concrete by incorporating recycled concrete aggregates and other products retrieved from construction and demolition (C&D) activities. Both recycled coarse aggregates (RCA) and recycled fine aggregates (RFA) are firstly used to fully replace the natural coarse and fine aggregates in...

Treatment of end-of-life concrete in an innovative heating-air classification system for circular cement-based products

A stronger commitment towards Green Building and circular economy, in response to environmental concerns and economic trends, is evident in modern industrial cement and concrete production processes. The critical demand for an overall reduction in the environmental impact of the construction sector can be met through the consumption of high...

Innovative technologies for recycling End-of-Life concrete waste in the built environment

Currently, natural resources are consumed at an alarming rate than their production (United Nations Environment Programme, 2014). This imposes unprecedented pressure on the environment. The problem seems to get worse with the present increase in population and demand for infrastructures. To alleviate these and other related problems, a circular...

Eco-efficiency assessment of technological innovations in high-grade concrete recycling

The increasing volume of Construction and demolition waste (CDW) associated with economic growth is posing challenges to the sustainable management of the built environment. The largest fraction of all the CDW generated in the member states of the European Union (EU) is End-of-life (EOL) concrete. The most widely applied method for EOL concrete...

Circular transition: Changes and responsibilities in the Dutch stony material supply chain

Recent literature has recognized the difficulty of implementing Circular Economy (CE) in supply chains. This has not yet led to a clear understanding of the reasons. This is critical to address, because the difficulty stalls the CE transition and suspends its benefits. Therefore, this paper investigates the reasons for the difficulty of...

Closing the loop of EOL concrete

Production of waste materials, via industrial and human activities, creates big environmental and economic problems but also opportunities to recover valuable resources. EU28 currently generates 461 million tons per year of ever more complex Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) with average recycling rates of around 46%. There is still a...

Closing the loop of EOL concrete

Production of waste materials, via industrial and human activities, creates big environmental and economic problems but also opportunities to recover valuable resources. EU28 currently generates 461 million tons per year of ever more complex Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) with average recycling rates of around 46%. There is still a...

Assessment of the contaminants level in recycled aggregates and alternative new technologies for contaminants recognition and removal

One of the main challenging problems associated with the use of Recycled Aggregates (RA) is the level of mixed contaminants. For utilizing RA in high-grade applications, it is essential to monitor and minimise the content of the pollutants. To this extent the C2CA concrete recycling process investigates a combination of smart demolition,...

The ITZ in concrete with natural and recycled aggregates: Study of microstructures based on image and SEM analysis

Aim of this work was to investigate the microstructure of the Interfacial Transition Zone (ITZ) between cement paste and aggregate in concrete utilizing Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) in order to identify possible effects on the ITZ related to different recipes and production parameters. SEM is an important tool to carry out concrete, cement...

A Robust Indicator for Promoting Circular Economy through Recycling

In order to move towards a more sustainable development, it is necessary not only to minimize the use of materials in the design stage and to find new materials as alternatives to nonrenewable ones (e.g. optical fiber instead of copper, biopolymers instead of polymers from oil) but also to reclaim as much as possible material value through...

Magnetic fluid equipment for sorting of secondary polyolefins from waste

The paper presents the researches made on the FP7 project „Magnetic Sorting and Ultrasound Sensor Technologies for Production of High Purity Secondary Polyolefins from Waste” in order to develop a magnetic fluid equipment for sorting of polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) from polymers mixed waste streams. Because both PP and PE float in...

Recycling of WEEE by magnetic density separation

The paper introduces a new recycling method of WEEE: Magnetic Density Separation. By using this technology, both grade and recovery rate of recycled products are over 90%. Good separations are not only observed in relatively big WEEE samples, but also in samples with smaller sizes or electrical wires.