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

美国政府、学术界、国内产业和公众越来越认识到，我们必须在保护能源和自然资源的同时，对环境进行明智的管理。可持续性问题是而且应该是我们如何设计、制造、使用和淘汰美国和世界各地消费的许多产品的首要问题。与太阳能或风能不同，它们可以长期有效地利用，也不像农产品那样是一种自然资源，无机材料，如金属和矿物，是不可再生的。因此，有必要开发技术来解决材料回收和再循环问题。虽然相当多的协调学术研究正在正确地进行，以满足能源的挑战，大学的努力，建立基础科学和技术的材料可持续性是不那么广泛和分散，尽管前景显着的能源和环境的影响。支持材料回收和再循环的研究本质上是多学科的，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领先大学。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。CR3汇集了资源回收和再循环领域的主要赞助者，以制定向工业界转让技术的全面途径。CR3的主要重点是钢铁、有色金属结构金属、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许多关键的行业挑战：具体而言，原料材料的稀缺和材料资源成本的增加，来自工业过程以及报废产品的废物量的增加，对资源回收、再利用和关键材料再循环的解决方案的需求，对能量有利的、环境相容的和经济上可行的工业过程的需求。CR3通过开发物理和化学工艺进行二次资源分选、提纯和浓缩以及价值提取来应对这些挑战。回收技术具有广泛的应用，影响所有材料的制造，包括金属、塑料、纸张、电子、玻璃、有机物、聚合物化学品等。

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.