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Re-use
Continuing product use
Limiting ageing processes helps keep products in use.
Corrosion, diffusion and cracking affect the continued use of products. Re-use requires these ageing processes to be considered and minimised.
Expert Committee
Circular Materials
Keeping materials in circulation through use, repair, remanufacturing and recycling.
Material properties, product design and material flows all help determine whether materials remain in circulation.
Members98
Founded2021
UnitDGM e.V.
Three routes for keeping materials in circulation
Remanufacturing
Recovering and separating components
Material joints and composites must be separated in a targeted way.
Remanufacturing components requires material joints and composites to be separated, including the separation of alloy constituents.
Recycling
Processing material fractions
Identification and sorting prepare material fractions for secondary raw materials.
Different material fractions must be identified and sorted before processing. Materials-science expertise also affects the efficiency and economic viability of processing them into secondary raw materials.
Product design, data and alloys
Products designed for recycling facilitate the separation of joints and material fractions, as well as further processing. At the same time, keeping materials in circulation produces compositions that result from real material flows. If aluminium alloys are mixed with small amounts of electronic waste because separation is insufficient, compositions can arise for which even basic thermodynamic data are often unavailable.
The Expert Committee also considers supply criticality and the development of suitable substitutes for scarce material resources used in future technologies. Material, process and product data provide an important basis for this work.
Bringing cross-cutting issues together
Assessment
Economic viability and criticality
Material flows and CO₂ equivalents form part of the assessment.
The Expert Committee discusses how economic viability, supply criticality, material flows and CO₂ equivalents can be assessed for materials and processes.
Data
Material, process and product data
Data connect materials, processes and products.
Material, process and product data are cross-cutting topics for assessing and further developing circular routes.
Framework conditions
Regulation, markets and continuing education
Technical questions are considered in relation to rules and markets.
Regulation, legislation and markets are considered alongside continuing education within the Expert Committee, at DGM and through advanced training.
Networking
Connecting projects and experts
Current projects in Germany provide a basis for exchange.
The Expert Committee enables exchange on current projects in Germany and connects materials scientists working in the field of the circular economy.
The life of a material begins with extraction and continues through manufacturing and product use to the end of a product’s life, which still too often results in waste in landfills or the natural environment. Material losses occur along this path, while the high energy input required contributes substantially to climate change. Different routes must therefore be considered for keeping materials in circulation: continued use of whole products, remanufacturing of components and recovery of separated materials.
Each route raises materials-science questions. Re-use requires ageing processes such as corrosion, diffusion and cracking to be limited. Remanufacturing and recycling require material joints and composites to be separated, as well as material and alloy constituents. Product designs suited to recycling and methods for identifying material fractions facilitate subsequent processing into secondary raw materials.
Further issues include assessing supply criticality and developing suitable substitutes for scarce material resources used in future technologies. Impurities from insufficiently separated material flows also alter alloy compositions; even basic thermodynamic data are often unavailable to describe these compositions. The Expert Committee brings these questions together with topics such as corrosion protection, process and material design, repair and the use of hydrogen.