Dimos Paraskevas

European Commission | ec

Abstract The uncontrolled mixing of metals and their alloys during the different life cycle phases, combined with the melt purification constraints during remelting, pose great challenges during their end-of-life (EoL) treatment. In practice, open-loop recycling is typical and more common for metals than closed-loop recycling; especially in the cas...

Solid state recycling techniques allow the manufacture of high density aluminium alloy parts directly from production scrap. In this paper the environmental impacts associated with ‘meltless’ scrap processing routes based on three different techniques, namely hot extrusion, screw extrusion and spark plasma sintering (SPS), are compared with the cor...

This study focuses on a detailed Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) for flax cultivation in Northern France. Nitrogen related field emissions are derived both from a process-oriented DeNitrification-DeComposition (DNDC) method and the generic Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) method. Since the IPCC method is synthesised from field measureme...

Recently, “meltless” recycling techniques have been presented for the light metals category, targeting both energy and material savings by bypassing the final recycling step of remelting. In this context, the use of spark plasma sintering (SPS) is proposed in this paper as a novel solid-state recycling technique. The objective is two-fold: (I) to p...

Ecodesign and Energy Labelling Regulation of domestic cooking appliances entered into force in 2015. Since then, the market has evolved and new technologies are available. The implementing measures contain review clauses that are already due. Energy classes also need rescaling. Therefore, the Commission launched the revision of this Regulation. The...

This paper discussed possible criteria and measurement systems for the future Battery Sustainability Regulation.

Following the Ecodesign Working Plan 2016-20191, the European Commission launched in 2018 a preparatory study for the product group ‘high pressure cleaners’. The preparatory study follows the Commission’s Methodology for the Evaluation of Energy related Products (MEErP). It consists of: Scope definition, standard methods and legislation, Market ana...

The contamination of aluminium streams during the different life cycle stages by alloy mixing and/or accumulation of foreign elements, in combination with the limited melt purification options during remelting, represents an important limiting factor in recycling. Consequently, in secondary aluminium production, primary aluminium is used to dilute...

This paper presents the final results of an industrial project, aiming for direct hot extrusion of wrought aluminium alloy scrap at an industrial scale. Two types of complex deformation/extrusion routes were tested for the production of the same profile, starting from AA6060 scrap in form of machining chips. More specifically scrap-based billets we...

The sustainable management of aluminium has become crucial due to the exponential growth in global demand. The transition to a sustainable society with lightweight electric vehicles has led to the increasing use of aluminium in the transportation sector. This has consequently led to the importance of aluminium recycling to prevent the valuable mate...

Additive Manufacturing represents, by now, a viable alternative for metal-based components production. Therefore the designer, often, has to select among three options at process design stage: subtractive, mass conserving, and additive approaches. The selection of a given process, besides affecting the manufacturing step impact, influences signific...

It is undisputed that the recycling of aluminium is desirable as long as the environmental and economic implications of its reintegration do not exceed the burdens of its primary production. The efficiency of any aluminium recycling system can be expressed by the total material losses throughout the entire process chain, ideally reaching 0%, thus e...

Whereas industrial symbiosis has led to increased energy and resource efficiency in process industries, this concept has not yet been applied in discrete product manufacturing. Metal scrap is first conventionally recycled, for which substantial energy and resource efficiency losses have been reported. Recent research has however proven the feasibil...

Abstract While additive manufacturing applications are progressing from rapid prototyping to the production of end-use products, the environmental impacts caused by these manufacturing processes and related material flows are still a rather open question. Therefore, this paper will provide an overview of available life cycle inventory data and comp...

Europe is highly dependent on the import of raw materials to supply its core industrial activities. Several initiatives are therefore launched to increase resource efficiency and convert the current linear economic model into a circular approach. This requires a range of innovative technologies and infrastructures that are flexible to different res...

Aim of this paper is to quantify and compare the environmental impact of primary aluminium production for the 29 major countries active in the primary aluminium value chain. The technology mix, electricity mix and heat mix vary a lot between countries. Different countries produce aluminium with different technologies, which can be translated into s...

Over the past three decades, China has undergone a strong economic growth, largely industry-driven. The rise of consumption resulted in increasing material requirements like steel, cement, plastic and aluminium. Regarding aluminium, the in-use stock increased to 58.9 kg/capita in 2009, from around 8.5 kg/capita in 1989 and 19.4 kg/capita in 1999. C...

The use of biobased materials to replace their conventional, synthetic counterparts is clearly increasing today. An interesting application, printed circuit board substrates based on biobased materials, has recently been proposed, produced, and tested by several researchers. Building on these exploratory studies, this paper aims to evaluate and com...

Recently innovative solid state / 'meltless' recycling techniques have been developed and proposed for the consolidation of aluminium alloy scrap, aiming both at energy and material savings by eliminating the melting step. In this context, a powder metallurgy route is examined as a solid state recycling technique for the fabrication of a two-phase...

Taking into account the expected growth of the world's population and increasing welfare level in developing countries, the global energy and material resource demand can be expected to increase significantly. Therefore, the environmental burden per unit produced should be strongly reduced in order to assure a sustainable impact level [1,2]. This p...

Various solid state or ‘meltless’ recycling techniques have recently been developed for light metal scrap in form of chips. Main objective of all approaches is to bypass the need for remelting in order to reduce the overall required energy, and to avoid the material losses that occur during this step. Within this paper, the use of Spark Plasma Sint...

Compared to other base metals, the refining options for aluminium during the final metallurgical recycling stage are very limited. These limited melt purification options, along with the relatively large number of alloys and the accumulation of alloying and foreign elements during the different life cycle stages, force the aluminium industry to ope...

The benefit of knowing the exact chemical composition of metal scrap plays a significant role from metallurgical point of view in recycling processes. Thus, the focus of this paper is to identify opportunities for more efficient scrap management, in order to minimize quality loses and primary material consumption during recycling. By moving to comp...