Economic and environmental aspects of niobium recycling

Abstract

The issues of sustainable consumption and usage of raw materials attract more and more attention among business, academia, and governmental structures worldwide due to the increasing pressure on the environment. Besides, the situation is being reinforced by the growth of population and constant increase in level of life standards, which lead to a further extension of a demand for materials. On the other hand, the modern economy strongly depends on access to raw materials. Therefore, in order to secure it from possible supply shortages and ensure opportunities for further development, different countries have adopted lists of critical raw materials. For instance, in the EU the materials have been selected taking into risks with regard to access to it and its economic importance. Thus, the development and establishment of sustainable consumption patterns are of high importance. Materials recycling represents a promising way and may be viewed sustainable from economic, environmental, and social viewpoints.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate possible to achieve economic and environmental benefits from an implementation of an innovative recycling technology for a case study material niobium, which has been assessed critical in different countries and regions, such as European Union, United States, and Japan. The research implies a holistic case study of niobium life cycle specifics as well as a study of modern metal recycling. The study includes quantitative assessment of niobium material flow utilizing system dynamics modelling and simulation.

The study provides several major results. First of all, the study provides a comprehensive analysis of niobium life cycle specifics and the developed conceptual model of the global niobium material flow. Secondly, the gained results have been translated into system dynamics, which allowed to conduct a quantitative assessment of niobium material flow via its simulation. Finally, the developed primary system dynamics model has been extended to evaluate possible to achieve economic and environmental benefits from implementation of an innovative niobium recycling technology. In order to achieve reliable results, various scenarios have been considered. Since there is no precise information available on the current situation, the study has considered various collection fractions for the disposed material, as well as the various recovery rates describing different innovative recycling technologies. Thus, possible to achieve economic and environmental benefits from an implementation of innovative niobium recycling technologies have been evaluated.