Carbon reduction engineering through value chains intersection, product and process re-design, industrial processes’ scraps de-manufacturing

Abstract

Composite materials use recently increased, although treatments at their End of Life are inexistent or highly inefficient (from the environmental perspective). Thus, openness to cooperation is needed, supported by methodologies for design for de-manufacturing. The approach proposed in the present work aims at transforming industrial processes’ scraps and off-specification pieces in primary materials, through re-design, without the risk of cannibalisation. It is mainly intended for industrial processes of composite materials; its objective is to find alternative applications to their invaluable final disposal and supports the merging of existing supply chains (Industrial Symbiosis). Nevertheless, it can be easily extended to non-composite and/or non-scraps. Re-design enables the establishment of waste-to-treasure composite scraps’ life cycles and is evaluated through Life Cycle Assessment. The application of the approach involved four Italian companies and results reveal that industrial symbiosis can reduce emissions (from −45% to more than −90%). Guidelines were outlined: involve End of Life operators to know how waste treatments, share information, favour networking and proximity, apply design for disassembly principles, consider simple shapes and modularity during (re)design. Future works will focus on off-the-shelf components and the economic evaluation of the proposed de-manufacturing actions and supply strategies.

GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT

Left: scraps linear lifecycle. Right: product linear lifecycle.Centre, top: representations of products/processes re-designed in the case study. Centre, bottom: main savings (kgCO2eq).

KEYWORDS:

• Circular economy
• design for de-manufacturing
• composite materials
• industrial symbiosis
• eco-design
• EoL awareness

Acknowledgements

The activities are related to the project MARLIC ‘Marche Applied Research Laboratory for Innovative Composites’, which is part of the project POR Marche Region FESR 2014–2020, Asse 1 – OS 2 – Intervento 2.1.1 e Asse 8 – OS20 – Azione 20.1 – Intervento 20.1.1.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author, F. C. The data are not publicly available due to containing information under commercial restrictions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Federica Cappelletti

Federica Cappelletti got a PhD in Industrial Engineering at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Mathematical Science of Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy after graduating in Mechanical Engineering. Her main research topic is design methods and tools for sustainable processes and products, in particular for Eco-design, Circular Economy, Circular Business Models.

Michele Germani

Michele Germani is a full professor of Design Tools and Methods for Industrial Engineering at the Department of Industrial Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy. He currently focuses his research activities on product configuration, sustainable design and manufacturing, design to cost, design for disassembly, end of life management, product-service systems, product ergonomics and human–computer interaction technologies.