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

美国政府、学术界、国内工业界和公众日益认识到，我们必须在明智地管理环境的同时，节约能源和自然资源。在我们如何设计、制造、使用和淘汰在美国和世界各地消费的许多产品时，可持续性问题是而且应该是最重要的。不像太阳能或风能可以长期有效地利用或作为自然资源的农产品，无机材料，如金属和矿物，是不可再生的。因此，需要发展处理材料回收和再循环的技术。尽管在应对能源挑战方面正在进行大量协调一致的学术研究，但大学在材料可持续性方面建立基础科学和技术的努力却不那么广泛和分散，尽管这对能源和环境有重大影响。支持材料回收和可循环利用的研究本质上是多学科的，必须满足整个供应链中众多商业利益相关者的需求。CR3汇集了四所具有材料科学和工程专业知识的顶尖大学。新型先进材料的工业应用将要求提高材料资源的回收和再循环效率，以实现循环经济。目前可用的先进制造技术在工业上没有一条自然的实施途径。CR3汇集了资源回收和再循环领域的主要部门，以开发向工业转让综合技术的途径。CR3重点关注钢铁、有色结构金属、轻金属、稀土、能源材料和光伏金属、高值难熔金属、电子材料等重点领域。技术发展涉及产品制造废物、消费后废物、仪器、传感器和控制、拆卸设计和垃圾变废为宝。在资源回收和再循环领域有许多关键的行业挑战：具体来说，原料短缺和材料资源成本增加，工业过程和报废产品产生的废物数量增加，需要资源回收、再利用和关键材料再循环的解决方案，需要积极有利、环境相容和经济上可行的工业过程。CR3通过开发用于二级资源分选、选矿和浓缩以及价值提取的物理和化学工艺来解决这些挑战。回收技术广泛应用于所有材料制造，包括金属、塑料、纸张、电子、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.