Collaborative Research: DESC: Type 1: Software-Hardware Recycling and Repair Dataset Infrastructure (SHReDI) for Sustainable Computing

电子垃圾是世界上增长最快的废物流，其中很大一部分最终被填埋。这尤其令人担忧，因为电子制造业使用的材料来自环境和社会保障措施不足的地区。此外，电子垃圾中的贵重材料，包括金、银、铜和铂，经常被焚烧或填埋。该合作项目旨在通过改变电子设计实践和优化电子废物物流来加强电子废物的回收。该项目的新颖之处在于开发低成本无线标签和计算模型，以准确量化与电子废物回收和再循环相关的成本和环境影响。俄勒冈州立大学和佛罗里达大学的研究人员将开发无线标签，为回收者提供易于阅读的材料类型、数量信息，并根据该项目中开发的决策模型推荐回收过程。该项目的影响是提高了电子废物的回收率和回收效率。此外，标签信息将允许追踪基于生产者的回收电子垃圾，使公共政策能够准确地将回收成本分配给电子制造商。该项目还包括广泛的教育和外展活动，强调对代表性不足群体的学生进行指导，并通过课程开发、K-12外展和本科生暑期研究经验，增加获得研究成果的机会。该项目的研究目标是开发集成电路（IC）硬件系统，以及数据收集和决策支持指标，以建立电子设备再利用和回收的定量信息生态系统。这个合作项目汇集了在集成电路设计、可持续制造、再制造和电子废物管理方面具有互补专业知识的研究人员。该项目设想利用关键设备数据（如材料含量和使用行为）来量化可重用性指标，并开发决策模型，以告知消费者、维修商和回收商最终使用策略。集成的硬件和建模研究任务将扩展有源射频识别（RFID）设计的边界，并使电子废物逆向物流施加的关键约束的数学模型成为可能。通过利用来自RFID标签的单个设备数据，将开发决策模型，以加强再制造业务，并制定更有效地管理生产者责任的策略。通过将高度可扩展和易于部署的硬件与生命终止决策支持模型相结合，该项目将展示循环生态系统的可行性，该生态系统可以显着提高电子废物的再利用和回收率。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Electronic waste (e-waste) is the fastest-growing waste stream worldwide, with a significant portion ending up in landfills. This is particularly concerning since electronics manufacturing uses materials from regions with insufficient environmental and social safeguards. Furthermore, valuable materials in e-waste, including gold, silver, copper, and platinum, are often consigned to burning or landfills. This collaborative project aims to enhance e-waste recovery by transforming electronics design practices and optimizing e-waste logistics. The project’s novelties are in the development of low-cost wireless tags and computational models for accurately quantifying the costs and environmental impacts associated with e-waste recovery and recycling. Researchers at Oregon State University and the University of Florida will develop wireless tags that will provide recyclers with easy-to-read information about material types, quantities, and recommended recycling processes based on the decision-making models developed during this project. The project’s impacts are higher recycling rates and improved recycling efficiency for electronic waste. Additionally, the tag information will allow tracking of recycled e-waste based on producers, enabling public policy that accurately assigns recycling costs to electronics manufacturers. The project also includes a wide range of educational and outreach activities, emphasizing mentoring students from underrepresented groups and enhancing access to research outcomes through curriculum development, K-12 outreach, and undergraduate summer research experiences. The research objective of this project is to develop an integrated circuit (IC) hardware system, along with data collection and decision support metrics, to establish a quantitative information ecosystem for electronic device reuse and recycling. This collaborative project brings together investigators with complementary expertise in integrated circuit design, sustainable manufacturing, remanufacturing, and e-waste management. The project envisions leveraging critical device data such as material content and usage behavior to quantify reusability metrics and develop decision-making models to inform consumers, repairers, and recyclers on end-of-use strategies. The integrated hardware-and-modeling research tasks will extend the boundaries of active radio-frequency ID (RFID) design and enable mathematical models for critical constraints imposed by e-waste reverse logistics. By utilizing individual device data from RFID tags, decision-making models will be developed to enhance remanufacturing operations and formulate strategies for managing producer responsibility more effectively. By combining highly scalable and easily deployable hardware with end-of-life decision support models, the project will demonstrate the feasibility of a circular ecosystem that can significantly increase the reuse and recovery rates of e-waste.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.