Synthesis and assessment of waste-to-resource routes for circular economy

Abstract

The benefits of the circular economy paradigm have been proven during the past two decades, but its application poses some challenges that still need to be tackled. This contribution presents a systematic way to generate a list of potential waste-to-resource technologies based on the use of a semi-automatic ontological frameworks. The ontology is instantiated, giving the possibility to generate and assess a list of transformation processes alternatives, according to the potentially available waste streams and resource requirements in a specific area and/or sector. The resulting list is then analyzed and classified according to pre-established parameters, thus presenting which are the potentially best alternatives to close the material loops and recover chemical resources from available waste. The capabilities of the method to identify promising transformation technologies are assessed through an illustrative case study: the evaluation of different routes for the treatment of plastic waste materials, with the focus on chemical recycling.