Phase II Industry University Cooperative Research Center for Resource Recovery & Recycling (CR3), Worcester Polytechnic Institute

美国政府、学术界、国内产业界和公众越来越认识到，我们在明智地管理环境的同时，必须节约能源和自然资源。可持续性问题是而且应该是我们如何设计、制造、使用和淘汰在美国和世界各地消费的许多产品的首要问题。不像太阳能或风能可以长期经济有效地利用，也不像农产品作为一种自然资源，无机材料，如金属和矿物，是不可再生的。因此，需要开发技术来解决材料回收和再循环问题。尽管应对能源挑战的相当协调的学术研究正在正确地进行，但大学为材料可持续性建立基础科学和技术的努力没有那么广泛和零散，尽管可能会对能源和环境产生重大影响。支持材料回收和可回收性的研究本身就是多学科的，必须满足整个供应链中多种商业利益相关者的需求。CR3汇集了四所拥有材料科学和工程专业知识的顶尖大学。新的先进材料的工业应用将需要提高材料资源回收和循环利用的效率，以实现循环经济今天可用的先进制造技术没有在工业中实施的自然途径。CR3将资源回收和再循环领域的关键支持者聚集在一起，开发面向行业的全面技术转移途径。CR3的主要重点是钢铁、有色结构金属、轻金属、稀土、能源材料和光伏金属、高价值难熔金属和电子材料等关键行业。技术开发涉及产品制造废物、消费后废物、仪器、传感器和控制、拆卸设计和变废为宝。在资源回收和再循环领域存在一些关键的行业挑战：具体地说，原料材料的稀缺和材料资源成本的增加，工业过程和报废产品产生的废物数量不断增加，需要关键材料的资源回收、再利用和再循环的解决方案，需要对能源有利、环境友好和经济可行的工业过程。CR3通过开发二次资源分选、选矿和浓缩以及价值提取的物理和化学过程来应对这些挑战。回收技术的广泛应用影响到所有材料的制造，包括金属、塑料、纸张、电子产品、玻璃、有机物、聚合物和化学品等。

The U.S. Government, academia, domestic industry and the public increasingly acknowledge the imperative that we conserve energy and natural resources while exercising judicious stewardship of the environment. The issue of sustainability is and should be paramount in how we design, manufacture, use, and retire the many products consumed within the United States and throughout the world. Unlike solar or wind energy that can be cost effectively harnessed for a long time or agricultural products as a natural resource, inorganic materials, such as metals and minerals, are not renewable. Therefore, the need exists for the development of technologies to address materials recovery and recycling. Although considerable coordinated academic research is rightly underway to meet energy challenges, university efforts to build the basic science and technologies for materials sustainability are less extensive and fragmented despite the prospect for significant energy and environmental ramifications. Research supporting materials recovery and recyclability is inherently multidisciplinary and must respond to the needs of a multiplicity of commercial stakeholders from throughout the supply chain. CR3 brings together four leading universities with expertise in materials science and engineering. The industrial application of new advanced materials will require an increase in the efficiency of materials resource recovery and recycling to achieve a circular economyThe advanced manufacturing technologies that are available today do not have a natural route to implementation in industry. CR3 brings together key constituencies in the resource recovery and recycling area to develop comprehensive technology transfer pathways to industry. The primary focus of CR3 is on key sectors of iron and steel, non-ferrous structural metals, light metals, rare-earths, energy materials and photovoltaic metals, high value refractory metals and electronic materials. Technology development addresses the product manufacturing wastes, post-consumer wastes, instrumentation, sensors and controls, design for disassembly and conversion of trash to treasure. There are a number of key industry challenges in the area of resource recovery and recycling: specifically, scarcity of feed stock materials and increasing cost of material resources, increasing amounts of waste from industrial processes as well as end-of-life products, need for solutions for resource recovery, reuse, and recycling of critical materials, need for energetically favorable, environmentally compatible and economically viable industrial processes. These challenges are addressed by CR3 through the development of physical and chemical processes for secondary resource sortation, beneficiation and concentration, as well as value-extraction. Recycling technologies have widespread applications affecting all materials manufacturing, including, metals, plastics, paper, electronics, glass, organics, polymers & chemicals, etc.