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Developing a Model to Assess Waste Recycling and Its Impact on Energy and Environmen

Kolagar, Mina | 2022

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  1. Type of Document: Ph.D. Dissertation
  2. Language: Farsi
  3. Document No: 56167 (46)
  4. University: Sharif University of Technology
  5. Department: Energy Engineering
  6. Advisor(s): Saboohi, Yadollah
  7. Abstract:
  8. The reaction of human societies with environmental limitations such as climate change and the prospect of limited mineral resources has led to the introduction of approaches such as circular economy. The implementation of circular economy requires the development of new assessment methods, technology development and planning. Even though in the economic theories of optimizing the extraction of exhaustible resources such as fossil fuel resources, methods are used to determine the optimal path of resource use, but the optimization of the return flow is less evaluated. In this research, the optimal material circulation model is developed based on material flow analysis and life cycle costing method. The model is used for iron and steel case studies. The developed model reflects changes in technology based on the year of production (technology development) and technology aging (number of years of operation), and accordingly, the competition between replacing old technologies with new technologies. This comparison has been investigated for two groups of steel products including road transportation and construction. In the road transport group, automobiles, taxis, city and intercity buses, and trucks have been investigated. The building group includes metal frame and concrete frame buildings. The effect of changing economic growth, applying the social costs of carbon emissions in determining the optimal lifespan has been investigated. The increase in the carbon tax has reduced the optimal lifespan of the automobile group's products and increased the lifespan of the building group. The decrease in the life of the car is in the range of 10-40% and the biggest decrease has been observed in the group of taxis, including the highest utilization rate. The biggest increase in the building group belongs to the concrete frame building with a 30% increase in life span in the range of 35-70 years, which is the factor affecting the cost increase in the construction phase. The limitation in exhaustible resources was investigated based on the exergy replacement cost of iron ore required to dilute the copper standard impurity. To reduce copper to one thousandth percent, the exergy replacement cost is equal to the exergy cost of the energy required for purification by the induction vacuum furnace method.
  9. Keywords:
  10. Circular Economy ; Materials Flow ; Waste Recycling ; Optimal Energy Management ; Optimal Resource Management ; Steel Recovery

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