TY - JOUR

T1 - Tracking the fate of aluminium in the eu using the matrace model

AU - Jarrín Jácome, Gabriela

AU - Godoy León, María Fernanda

AU - Alvarenga, Rodrigo A.F.

AU - Dewulf, Jo

N1 - Funding Information: Funding: This research was funded by Erasmus Mundus Association, grant number 586659-EPP-1-2017-1-BE-EPPKA1-JMD-MOB. The APC was funded by the Research Group of Sustainable Systems Engineering (STEN) of Ghent University. Publisher Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

PY - 2021/7

Y1 - 2021/7

N2 - Aluminium is a metal of high economic importance for the European Union (EU), presenting unique properties (e.g., light weight and high corrosion resistance) and with applications in important sectors (e.g., transportation, construction and packaging). It is also known for its high recyclability potential, but relevant losses occur in its life cycle, compromising the amount of aluminium available for secondary production. A novel methodology that allows the identification of these losses and their impact on the aluminium flows in society is the MaTrace model. The objective of this article is to perform a dMFA of the secondary production of aluminium in the EU technosphere using the modified version of MaTrace, in order to estimate flows of the metal embedded in 12 product categories. Twelve scenarios were built in order to assess the impact of changes in policies, demand and technology. The flows were forecasted for a period of 25 years, starting in 2018. The results of the baseline scenario show that after 25 years, 24% of the initial material remains in use, 4% is hoarded by users, 10% has been exported and 61% has been physically lost. The main contributor to the losses is the non-selective collection of end-of-life products. The results of the different scenarios show that by increasing the collection-to-recycling rates of the 12 product categories, the aluminium that stays in use increase up to 32.8%, reaffirming that one way to keep the material in use is to improve the collection-to-recycling schemes in the EU.

AB - Aluminium is a metal of high economic importance for the European Union (EU), presenting unique properties (e.g., light weight and high corrosion resistance) and with applications in important sectors (e.g., transportation, construction and packaging). It is also known for its high recyclability potential, but relevant losses occur in its life cycle, compromising the amount of aluminium available for secondary production. A novel methodology that allows the identification of these losses and their impact on the aluminium flows in society is the MaTrace model. The objective of this article is to perform a dMFA of the secondary production of aluminium in the EU technosphere using the modified version of MaTrace, in order to estimate flows of the metal embedded in 12 product categories. Twelve scenarios were built in order to assess the impact of changes in policies, demand and technology. The flows were forecasted for a period of 25 years, starting in 2018. The results of the baseline scenario show that after 25 years, 24% of the initial material remains in use, 4% is hoarded by users, 10% has been exported and 61% has been physically lost. The main contributor to the losses is the non-selective collection of end-of-life products. The results of the different scenarios show that by increasing the collection-to-recycling rates of the 12 product categories, the aluminium that stays in use increase up to 32.8%, reaffirming that one way to keep the material in use is to improve the collection-to-recycling schemes in the EU.

KW - Aluminium

KW - Dynamic material flow analysis

KW - MaTrace

KW - Secondary production

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85111113597&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3390/resources10070072

DO - 10.3390/resources10070072

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85111113597

VL - 10

JO - Resources

JF - Resources

SN - 2079-9276

IS - 7

M1 - 72

ER -